Starting Afresh in January: Monthly Team Update

Hello 2022!

January is not known for being an easy month in any circumstance. Recuperating from the holidays, unforgiving temperatures, minimal sunlight, the inescapable notion of making resolutions… it’s enough to discourage anyone from getting out of bed. This time around there are added challenges for most of us, not least of all the ramifications of the year just passed.

However, we had at least one exciting thing to look forward to: having a chat with all of you, first thing in 2022. Though we never have a set plan for these informal sessions, January’s Co-Pro Cuppa session was unusual. It came after a considerable break, ended with more attendants than it started with, and our team had more technical problems than ever before.

And yet, the year 2022 could not have been off to a better start: we had an amazing turn-out, several first-time attendees, fantastic talking points to discuss, and most of all, plenty of co-production inspiration to walk away with. The main topics that came up were: holding processes accountable for not being co-production when they say they are; frameworks that support co-production; and listening to lived experience, with much more discussed in breakout rooms.

Mark your calendars

We hope to see even more new and old faces at our upcoming events this year. You can already register for our Cuppas in winter and spring 2022 below!

1 February, 10:00 – 11:30 am

1 March, 14:00 – 15:30

1 April, 10:00 – 11:30 am

4 May, 14:00 – 15:30

Looking to the future

Of course, there’s plenty more than Cuppas to be getting involved with in 2022. In true co-production style, we don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing when! But some activities which are definitely planned for this year include:

• The last round of co-creation and final publication of our payment policy
• Continuing to co-create and launch our new online community area
• Getting to grips with our approach to reflection, learning and capturing impact – and sharing this more widely
• Refreshing Our Direction 2020-2022 – self-evidently, our first ever strategy comes to an end this year! We’ll be taking the time to look afresh at our ambitions and what we want to achieve together for 2023 and beyond.
• Continuing to develop our approach to making decisions, particularly around who we partner with or accept funding from.

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All of the above will, of course, be co-created in collaboration with you. Some of this we had hoped to get to in 2021, but with a small team trying to deliver externally funded projects as well as our own activities, we’ve had to slow progress in a few areas. We’re sorry that this has been the case and want to be transparent about it – we know delays on the payment policy and other aspects of our work is frustrating. We feel that too, but want to make sure that we stay true to our values and do this work properly, together, rather than taking the quicker or easier option.

That said, we’ll also be taking 2022 to start exploring how we can make sure more of the Co-Production Collective community can get involved with the work we do, both internally and with our partners. You all have so much diverse and valuable expertise and experience to offer – if you want to share it more widely, then we want to help make that happen.

We hope you’ll join us!

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Get involved and let us know what you think

What else would you like to see for Co-Production Collective in 2022? We’d love to hear your thoughts, suggestions and questions. As ever, you can get in touch with us via email, at coproduction@ucl.ac.uk, or on Twitter – follow us there and make sure you’re signed up to our newsletter to keep up to date with the latest opportunities, learning and events.

Here’s to 2022!

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