Call for Stories: Register your interest now!

Just as April kicked off, we shared the news that the Collective has received funding we can use to demonstrate the value of co-production in a more comprehensive way than ever before. Read on to find out how your stories can help make this happen!

The funding (£150,000) was awarded by Research England (part of UK Research Innovation) to our base, University College London, to develop and strengthen their ability to work with communities meaningfully, through participatory and co-produced activity.

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How will we do this?

With the help of our partners, we aim to use ideas and insights from people’s stories as the basis of a report and other materials that will seek to answer the question: What is the value of co-production?

Over the next few months, experiences of co-production will be gathered by our partner, People’s Voice Media. Then, they will work with the storytellers to identify what key changes co-production processes bring to services, research and policy.

The story-telling sessions will take 30 minutes and will be held online in a 1-2-1 structure with a Community Reporter. The story will be captured as a 10-15 minute video or audio recording during this session. They will be similar to the ones which shaped our Co-Pro Stories videos and report, with co-production workshops to make sense of all of our findings.

All the stories will be shared publicly on the Community Reporter website and an extract from your story will be added to a playlist (unless otherwise requested by the interviewee). You are in control of what you share. You can withdraw your participation and consent to be involved at any time before, during or post storytelling activity.

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Share your story

We’d love to hear from people from across the UK who have been involved in co-producing services, research and/or policy to share their stories with a team of Community Reporters.

You may be…

• a person with living or lived experience of a topic, health condition or service
• a researcher
• a policymaker
• a service manager
• someone working in service delivery
• a co-production practitioner
• a resident
• a tenant
• a strategic leader
• … or any other role within co-production that you can imagine!

We hope to gather a mixture for stories from different types of co-production projects and activities. Whether your experience was good, bad, or anything in-between – share it with us!

The deadline to express your interest in this project is 18 May 2022 – so be sure to fill out this online form before then. If you would like assistance with this form please contact us or send an email to enquiries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk

There is budget to cover any expenses/support costs (e.g., Internet costs, Personal Assistant support to attend the session) that you may incur through taking part. You can let us know about these on the online form above.

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What happens next?

• ‍Within 2 weeks: someone from the People’s Voice Media team will get in touch about your expression of interest. They will then arrange a time for your 1-2-1 storytelling session. These will take place between April and May 2022, and the team will contact you during this timeframe.

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• In April or May 2022 – as well as your 1-2-1 storytelling session, you will be  invited to take part in some (optional) online workshops we are organising in June and July 2022, in which we will decide together what the key findings are from your stories and how they demonstrate the value of co-production. Payment will be offered for these workshops to people who are attending in an unwaged capacity and expenses/support costs will also be covered.

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Even if you don’t participate as a storyteller, there are still lots of ways to explore how the project develops.

• In July 2022 – there will also be some public events (in-person and online) where we will share what we’ve learned from the stories, exploring what can create the ‘right’ conditions for co-production to be successful in services, policy and research.

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• By the end of September 2022 – we will have produced a short report that summarises the key learning from the stories and have edited all the story extracts. We’ll be sharing them with the storytellers and here on our website!

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If you’d like to be storyteller, don’t forget to register your interest by 18th of May 2022. In the meantime, if you have any questions or would like more information, please get in touch: coproduction@ucl.ac.uk