Navigating co-production: Katherine’s journey

In this blog we interview long-term community member, Katherine about her experiences of being involved in co-production for the last 17 years. Katherine really enjoys her co-production involvement which has really helped with her recovery. She thanks the NHS and research for getting us all involved.

Katherine’s first experience of co-production was in 2009 as part of a project studying rehabilitation activities for service users. She saw an advert in the Camden Bugle, a free local newsletter, and signed up to be involved:

“Before I knew it, I was involved in training rehab wards to do activities for service users, which was a great experience after being ill for some time.”

From there things took off, and she’s participated in a huge range of projects, including working with Kings College London to train researchers in public and patient involvement (PPI). We asked Katherine what’s changed over the last 17 years:

“…so there’s a lot more of it. Co-production in research has shifted from a novel, somewhat contested concept to an increasingly promoted and even mandated approach. I think researchers have also become more skilled in facilitating Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) groups, and researchers like co-production as it gives them ideas they might not have thought about.”

At the beginning, co-production was very much about her learning on the job and Katherine emphasised that she’s “…much better at co-production in research now than when I first started.” Most of her co-production work has focussed on mental health research, helping to ensure studies address real needs and increase the relevance and quality of the research. Over time, co-production has helped her develop her skills and given her “something to do”:

“I think the researchers get impact on their study from doing co-production. Often researchers change their project after consulting with co-producers. Co-producers gain skills and knowledge which enables them to build confidence in what they’re doing so they can contribute better.”

Katherine has experienced her fair share of challenges since starting her co-production journey, with everything from online meeting technology to difficulties with power dynamics causing tensions. On power imbalances, she says the difference comes down to the aims of the project and the attitudes of the team – is it just a tick-box exercise or does everyone involved want truly meaningful co-production? She emphasised that to do co-production with research well, researchers needed to build “strong, trusting relationships…and ensure genuine equality by valuing all forms of knowledge.”

“I think there’s sometimes a lack of funding, because PPI takes more time to carry out with insufficient staff to take part in it. Sometimes [the issues are] communication barriers, life, scientific jargon and resistance to valuing lived experience over traditional expertise.”

She’s drawn on skills she gained in her teaching career when designing and delivering co-production training to university staff. She believes co-production is having its moment, with more emphasis from funders and universities of the importance of co-production leading to more researchers than ever getting involved. In her words, “there's a thirst for knowledge about how to do it successfully at the moment.”

With more co-production opportunities than ever, we asked Katherine what advice she’d give to someone getting involved in co-production for the first time. She said:

“Speak up in meetings, you’re not there to just sit quietly in the corner. Just contribute as much as you can, and if it’s already been said, don’t bother repeating it.”

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With thanks to Olu Adeosun for interviewing Katherine.

If you would like to be interviewed about your own experiences for our blog, please get in touch by emailing coproduction@ucl.ac.uk. We’d love to chat!

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