Care Journeys Project Acorn: What we learned about co-production and reducing loneliness[Part 2]
In summer 2021 we tested People I Tolerate, a care-experienced youth group, for six weeks with a group of seven care-experienced young people between the ages of 16–18 years old. The aim was to test an idea care-experienced co-producers in the Project Acorn team had come up with to reduce and prevent loneliness and social isolation for young people in care.
In this second post in the series we’ll hear what People I Tolerate was like for young people and what the Project Acorn team learned about co-production and reducing loneliness from testing it out. If you haven’t already please go back and read the first post in this series.
What was people I Tolerate (the care-experienced youth group) like?
Most sessions were based in the Care Journeys office in Plymouth. The walls are pale yellow with coloured beams across the room. There’s a mini pool table, a stack of board games and couches with fluffy blankets on them. Light streams into the small kitchen where the kettle is nearly always freshly boiled. Workers and young people pop in and out, having lively chats as they make hot drinks for each-other.
People I Tolerate met once a week initially and build up to meeting twice a week for 2–3 hours. COVID restrictions limited the number of people in the space so Acorn co-producers took turns co-running sessions with a practitioner. We found that the group gelled almost immediately, speaking openly about their sexuality and neurodiversity in the first session. In the second session the group voted to watch the film Joker and in the third session one of the Acorn co-producers ran a Life Hacks/experiments session, turning tennis balls into hangers and creating mini planes with balloons and old CDs.
We soon realised that session plans didn’t really matter…as long as the People I Tolerate group was together and chatting they were happy. Here’s how some of them described it.
“We’ve been doing loads of activities, getting to know each other and helping one, another being part of group.” — People I Tolerate young person
“Beating everyone at pool, making new friends, getting to know everyone, learning new skills, like making coffee, just gaining more confidence and independence as a whole.” — People I Tolerate young person
Professionals mirrored the way young people felt in the space, which we found was key to creating an atmosphere where everyone felt comfortable.
“You’re not in the PA [personal advisor] role. You almost leave that at the door as you step into the room because you’re there as an adult, as a trusted person, supporting groups of young people to do whatever it is they’re doing, but you can actually be more relaxed within yourself.”— Helen Fox, Plymouth City Council PA
What did the People I Tolerate group get out of it?
For some young people People I Tolerate gave them purpose and structure.
“It gives me a will to wake up, I guess. Cause sometimes I just wake up and just to go on my PS4 for the day. And since if go back to sleep where if find out I’m going out, it gives me a will to wake up.” — People I Tolerate young person
For others it was cathartic and confidence building.
“It gives me more confidence in speaking more because I’ve recently been quiet for three days and I’ve been going through such a rough time and I can’t deal with like a certain amount of noise. So it just helps me try and chill out and try and get myself together.”— People I Tolerate young person
It was also an opportunity for some to spend time with people who were different to them.
“A whole new perspective of people with different kinds of communication skills…because you’ve got the people who talk a lot. You’ve the people who don’t talk a lot…so it was like, I’m learning something new.” — People I Tolerate young person
What did we learn about reducing loneliness?
It doesn’t really matter what we’re doing together, as long as everyone feels connected
Despite our efforts to plan activities we found what mattered most is creating an atmosphere where young people feel comfortable and can hang out together.
“As long as we’re getting people together, it doesn’t matter what the activity is. As long as they get to make those friendships and those social circles.” — Project Acorn co-producer
Spending time with other care-experienced young people is important for some but not all
For some care-experienced young people knowing that someone else was in care too can provide initial common ground that may help relationships develop. For others, there may have been negative experiences in the past which mean they may not always feel safe.
“…just like instantly, you know, you have something in common, so you can just try and find other things in common other than, oh, we don’t live with our actual parents.” — People I Tolerate participant
“…if you’re trying to escape that kind of world that you don’t want to be in, then it’s hard to like escape with those kinds of people.” — People I Tolerate participant
What we learned about longterm co-production with care-experienced young people
Our co-producers were motivated by having responsibility but weren’t always able to commit longer term
We started cycle 01 with five care-experienced co-producers in the Acorn team and ended it with three who delivered People I Tolerate alongside practitioners. Although there is no doubt that every person in the Acorn team wanted to make change for other care-experienced young people,
“…to actually run the project, it was like, right. I’ve got to go in today because I’m running this. I have to make sure that these young people are getting what they want.” — Project Acorn co-producer
“To be honest there was a lot of disagreements and a lot of things brought from outside, inside and that made it quite difficult. I think the main thing was that we were losing people and that’s where it was like, oh no, we started with five now we’ve got four. Now we’ve got three… You know? And it was like, it was a bit upsetting for that to happen. Yeah. But in the same way, it was like, well, if it didn’t happen the whole group might have like just fallen apart.” — Project Acorn co-producer
Practitioners need to constantly stretch and flex their roles as the work progresses
Group-based co-production requires practitioners to be both task and maintenance focused. Traditionally in group-based youth work the focus of practitioners is maintaining the group dynamics. This is stuff like conflict resolution, supporting individual needs and setting expectations — it takes real skill. In design work the focus is making things together. Over the course of PCarin, Helen and I played the role of designers, youth workers as well as audio storytellers (we recorded the process for the Barnardo’s seen and not Heard: Making Change series), recruiters as well as researchers and public speakers.
There’s a need for creating common language and clear roles for young people involved in co-creation work across Children’s Social Care
In this write up I’ve referred to the care-experienced young people who were involved in the design process as co-producers — although this doesn’t mean that much for them on a CV. At Barnardo’s and in Plymouth City Council (the partnership that makes up Care Journeys) there is a lack of clarity around the status of what young people are when they get involved in work like this; are they volunteers, are they as-and-when workers, are they part-time employees?
We’ve explored the volunteer route through Barnardo’s but found the lengthy administrative process can be a barrier for young people. Our colleagues in Brent Care Journeys are trialing engaging young people longer term as ‘As and when’ workers. There’s probably no correct status but formalising the role of young people as co-creators is an important part of embedding co-creation work into the care system.
Confidence is one of the primary things young people get out of the process
We were curious to find out what young people get out of the co-production process so alongside speaking to Project Acorn co-producers we touched base with co-producers from the Alpha Design Lab which wrapped up in summer 2020.
“More confidence, socially, now I m more confident to talk to people I don’t know, it taught me everyone is the same although different, we weren’t forced to talk to each other but it was everyone was talking trying to include me, I started talking more and became big part of the group.” — Alpha Design Lab care-experienced co-producer one year on
“I’m more confident in my jobs. I just stand my ground more…” — Alpha Design Lab care-experienced co-producer one year on
“More confidence. Also experience with groups, I’d never run a group before or ever done anything like that with a group…it made me realise I can do that. And young people were coming to me as if I was a worker that then I could go to uni and do that. So I can be a worker. …It was always in the back of my mind, but I thought I was too old and because I have 3 kids and like with my disabilities and everything else was and the care-leaver status. So I just assumed that I just wouldn’t be able to do uni.” — Project Acorn co-producer
When co-production may not be the right tool
Going into this work we tried to do authentic co-production with care-experienced young people. This meant doing almost every part of the work with young people. Although co-production is often considered the holy grail, or the top of the ladder of engagement, we found that it was too much of an ask for the young people we involved and put a lot of unnecessary pressure on professionals.
Looking back, the Acorn co-producers were definitely engaged in the ‘why’ part of the work, in sharing their stories, recruiting other young people to get involved and coming up with ideas for how things could change but when we got into the more admin side of the work such as co-producing session plans and risk assessments they disengaged. We also found that with so much going in in their lives outside of Acorn, the commitment of 2 half days a week was too much.
“I think involve them in the design, check in with them what you produce, but not produce it with them, you know? And if there is someone that says, actually you know that’s crap, I don’t like that say to them, “Okay. Do you want to spend some time with me on doing it? rather than sitting down as a group and saying today’s session we’re going to look at the risk assessments — yeah, that didn’t work.” — Carin Laird, Experienced Youth worker, Care Journeys
In the next post in the series we’ll share how what we learned translates into the next cycle of Project Acorn. We’ll also share three key recommendations for reducing loneliness for care-experienced young people at scale.
Project Acorn is featured in a 3-part episode series called ‘Making Change’ on Barnardo’s Heard but not Seen podcast. Here’s the first episode on Spotify and you can also find it on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen.
