One of my responsibilities at TONIC is to lead on co-production. I feel passionate about empowering underrepresented individuals to shape social policy and service delivery.

The term co-production refers to a way of working, whereby everybody works together on an equal basis to create a service or come to a decision which works for them all. At its most basic, co-production is about ‘action’ e.g., people (including professionals and people who use services) coming together and producing a service or an outcome. 

The Think Local Act Personal (TLAP) National Co-production Advisory Group says the following about co-production:

“Co-production is not just a word, it is not just a concept, it is a meeting of minds coming together to find shared solutions. In practice, co-production involves people who use services being consulted, included and working together from the start to the end of any project that affects them. When co-production works best, people who use services and carers are valued by organisations as equal partners, can share power and have influence over decisions made”.

There are four pillars of co-production:

1. Equality – Co-production is based on the ethos that everyone is equal and has skills that will benefit the project. Status within the group must always be equal regardless of job title or role.

2. Diversity – The people taking part should be as representative of the community where the project is taking place as possible, attention should be given to barriers underrepresented groups may face so changes can be made to ensure that activities are inclusive to all communities and groups.

3. Accessibility – Everyone should be supported and given the opportunity to take part in co-production activities, in order to achieve this, consideration should be given to the format any materials are presented in so they are accessible to everyone.  

4. Reciprocity – Co-production is a two-way process, meaning everyone involved should get something out of being involved.

At TONIC, we are committed to a co-production approach in all our research projects. We involve and empower key stakeholders including those with lived experience to collaborate on designing the right methodologies, tools, interpreting findings, and forming recommendations. Diversity, accessibility, equality, and reciprocity are at the heart of our approach to ensure activities are inclusive to all communities and barriers experienced by underrepresented groups are understood and addressed. 

Recently, I was responsible for facilitating a series of co-production workshops with a charity called St Basil’s who are based in Birmingham (https://stbasils.org.uk/). St Basil’s works with young people aged 16-25 who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, to enable them to find and keep a home, grow their confidence, develop their skills, increase opportunities, and prevent homelessness. As a charity, they are passionate about youth voice and have multifaceted engagement services to ensure young people are co-authors in their future at an individual and a collective level. 

This was for a project TONIC were conducting alongside Ipsos UK and the University of Kent to evaluate the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) funded research trial of the TIS UK (Trauma Informed Schools UK) intervention to run in Birmingham and Manchester. You can find out more information about TIS UK here: https://www.traumainformedschools.co.uk/

The aim of these workshops was to co-produce evaluation research materials with the Youth Advisory Board from St Basil’s so they were accessible, sensitive, and suitable for participants. Materials included, interview discussion guides, surveys and questionnaires, social media assets and promotional materials. Participants were asked to consider the following questions whilst having an input on evaluation research materials: 

• What would you need in place whilst answering these questions? Who would you need in the room?

• Should the wording be changed? Should the question be asked in a different way? Are any questions inappropriate? 

• How would you feel whilst answering these questions?

• What would you need in place after answering this question? How would you feel afterwards? 

Following the workshops, we reported back to the evaluation team about all of the young people’s feedback and wherever possible this was implemented or taken into consideration when finalising the project’s research materials. To ensure the pillars of co-production were properly embedded into this process, we made sure to meet with the Youth Advisory Board in a final workshop to showcase the impact of their contribution.

At TONIC, we are always looking for ways to improve which is why we also asked the participants for feedback on the co-production workshops. You can see some of their responses below.