What’s next for Co-Production Collective?

Date of publication: 15 February 2021

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It’s been a very busy start to 2021 for Co-Production Collective. The big news, for those that don’t know, is that our new co-produced website is going to be live VERY soon – exciting times! Launch week is (fingers crossed!!) the first week in March. The next few months are big ones for the Collective with lots of sessions happening (there is more info below on when the sessions are, please join us!) and… we’re nearing crunch point in terms of needing to secure funding and our sustainability for the future. We have been working hard on this and expect to see things come to fruition soon,. We’re hopeful that there is much more just around the corner!

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A winding road that disappears around the corner. Photo credit: Jason Leung

What’s next for Co-Production Collective?

The co-created ambitions in ‘Our Direction 2020-2022’ are waiting to be tackled so there are lots of things on our to-do list! But there’s one big question sitting above them – how do we make decisions? This links to everything from defining what ‘success’ looks like for us, how we’re accountable to each other, and how we ensure everyone who wants to is able to participate in our work.

We’re planning to work our way through all of these questions but a couple are more pressing than others. The first is – how do we make decisions about who we work with? In other words, on what basis do we decide that we are – or aren’t – going to apply for a particular pot of funding or collaborate with certain organisations? So that’s our next co-creation session, coming up on 25 March.

Secondly, our payment policy. As you may remember, we started the process of co-creating this at the end of last year, and we had a huge response. So huge, in fact, that it’s going to take us a little bit longer to work through it all, make sure we have properly understood the different issues raised, and get some advice from specialists. We plan to run a co-creation session on this as soon as we can and will keep you updated. A massive thank you to everyone who has gotten involved so far!

Thirdly, one of Co-Production Collective’s ambitions is around learning and development, evaluating and evidencing what we do and what changes as a result. But before we can do that, we need to understand a bit more about how we think our activities will make a difference. We’re going to start doing this through some offline co-creation around our ‘Journey of Change’ – watch this space for more info soon.

Finally, as mentioned in our blog (Working towards a more inclusive Co-Production Collective), we need and want to continue our commitment to building a diverse and inclusive community, but we can’t do that unless we know who we’re already reaching. Our current approach to monitoring this isn’t really working, so what can we do instead? We know that this is an issue that lots of you are also thinking about at the moment, so we’re dedicating our next Co-Production Collective Get Together (the new name for our Co-production Network) to ‘Understanding who’s in the room’. Join us in April to explore this issue together.

And one more thing – the Co-Pro Cuppas have been so popular that we’re bringing them back every month! Find out more about the Cuppas and what the other types of sessions involve below.

Opportunities to get involved – March and April 2021

Co-Pro Cuppas
Wednesday 3 March 14:00-15:30
Thursday 1 April 10:00-11:30

Co-Production Collective Get Together
Understanding who’s in the room – Tuesday 20 April 10:00-12:00

Co-creation sessions
How do we decide who we work with? – Thursday 25 March 13:30-15:30

Co-creation in your own time
Our Journey of Change: how we think what we do makes a difference – dates coming soon

Not sure what these different types of sessions are? Have a read of ‘Our Nitty Gritty document’ (available as a PDF or as a Word.docx) to find out more.

How do I sign up?

You can now do this via our new Events page, so head on over there and take a look! If you need any help, please just email us and we'll be happy to lend a hand.

We hope to see you at one of these sessions soon!