Reflecting on our Co-Pro Cuppas and how they can better meet the needs of our community

At last week’s Co-Pro Cuppa, we discussed the different groups of people who might come to our events, and how we can ensure the Cuppas are welcoming to people interested in co-production from all backgrounds -whether they’re coming to explore co-production from their lived, living or learnt experience. In line with our values - being reflective, kind, transparent, inclusive and embracing of change - we’re sharing this blog to open up the discussion beyond the Cuppa attendees last week and to reflect on the actions we are taking to improve our Cuppas.

The description of Co-Pro Cuppas on our website

We discussed whether the description on our website about Co-Pro Cuppas was clear enough to welcome people with lived experience who are not attending Cuppas in a professional capacity.

As a result of this conversation, we think it is important to revisit our wording to see if we can make it more inclusive of people attending primarily to share their lived experience - not as part of their job.

If you have any suggestions to improve our description of the Cuppas, or about how we can make them as inclusive as possible, please share your thoughts via our Co-Pro Cuppa Survey.

Payment to attend Co-Pro Cuppas

During the September Co-Pro Cuppa, it was suggested that people could be paid to attend Cuppas, in the hope this would attract more people with lived experience who are not coming in a professional capacity.

At the moment, we are unable to pay people to join Co-Pro Cuppas, although we would be happy to discuss this further as a community, if funding allows. You can find out more about the types of activities we are currently able to offer payment for in our Payment Policy.

We are aware that we need to find a way to offer different types of support to people with lived experience to get involved in our projects. As part of our Community Journey Project and our commitment to this, we are looking at what we can offer people in addition to payment for their time.

How to make our Co-Pro Cuppas inclusive for all

We are aware that all sorts of conversations emerge during Co-Pro Cuppas, so at every Co-Pro Cuppa, we ask people to get in touch with us if they would like any support afterwards by emailing coproduction@ucl.ac.uk. To allow for anonymous feedback, we will now also share the Co-Pro Cuppa survey at the end of each Cuppa. In addition, we are currently revising our Ways of Working and looking at how we can  make the Cuppas as safe a space as possible for people taking part in them.

As part of our commitment to accessibility, if there are any ways that you think we can make our Co-Pro Cuppas more accessible, please let us know by emailing coproduction@ucl.ac.uk.

The changing makeup of attendees at our Cuppa events

We have noticed the change in the make-up of the people that attend our Cuppas over the last few years and are in the process of redeveloping our offer, including offering themed Co-Pro Cuppas. To help do this we are pulling together feedback from:

• Our 2024 Community Survey  
• Our Co-Pro Cuppa survey
• Community members involved in our Community Journey Project, which is aims to better understand our community members involvement in the Collective and what we can put in place, aside from payment to better support people.

As part of this, and our commitment to community care, we are also looking at what we could potentially offer to:

• People who are interested in, or have experience of, co-production activities related to their lived experience.
• People who are both involved in co-production in a professional capacity and who have lived experience related to their work.
• People from the global majority, with a focus on peer-to-peer support, as part of embedding an anti-racist approach within our work.

If you have any thoughts on this let us know. You can do this by completing our Co-Pro Cuppa Survey or contact us via email at coproduction@ucl.ac.uk

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