My experience of co-production
Published on behalf of Sue Boddy, one of our co-producers.
Here are Sue’s reflections following our first co-production project in the content design team at Scope. You can read more about the project here.
The project has been a really enjoyable experience. After studying content design, analytics, UX among other things and developing a real interest in these, the Scope project came along at just the right time.
The reason I applied to be on the project was to get some practical experience, a taster if you might say, to see if this was a career path I wanted to pursue. The ‘lived experience as a disabled person’ for me was just a way in. I thought of myself on the project as a person starting out on a new career path, learning all she could while I was on the project, who just happened to have a disability.
The term co-producer was not one I had come across before starting this project, but since then, I’ve noticed a few charities and organisations asking for co-producers, so it seems to be fairly common practice.
From my perspective there are both positives and negatives to co-production.
The positives are getting a fresh/new perspective, including an authentic voice, challenging any preconceived ideas, thinking outside the box.
The negatives are that the person(s) brought in to do the co-production on a specific project, are only seen through the prism of that issue i.e., disability, mental health, claiming benefits, and they are not deemed able to bring anything else to the project. This could feel like tokenism, and this would negate the positives of using co-production on a project. Also, we all have unconscious bias, and this is something that we should all reflect on.
If i was just viewed on the project solely through the prism of my lived experience of disability and nothing else (i.e. I brought nothing else to the table) then I would feel disappointed and it wouldn’t be great for my confidence. This is not the vibe I got working on the project, I felt like an equal team member.
Disability is such a wide spectrum, covering people with dyslexia to people who need round the clock care, it’s like herding cats, you cannot accommodate every person’s specific needs.
For example, on this project, I had no experience of claiming disability benefits, I’m not a wheelchair user, so I have not had any access issues, have not needed to ask for any adaptations at work. My chronic health condition affects the type of work I can do (so physically active jobs are out), my social life and my mental health. So, it does make it hard from a co-production point of view when the needs and experiences of disabled people can be so varied. One or two voices cannot cover this very wide spectrum.
So, overall, I think co-production is a good idea when undertaking a project and you want to get the right tone and to have a deeper understanding of the subject matter. But it is also important to make sure you know what the co-producer (s) want to get out of the project themselves?
Is it, as in my case, a chance to gain new skills and experiences, or maybe the co-producer might want to bring their voice to a subject they see as important, and to highlight issues that people without that lived experience might not be aware of.
No matter what the reasons are, it is a good idea to check in with the co-producer (s) to make sure they are ok with how their role in the project is going, I feel this is especially important it the co-producer(s) are disclosing personal information and dealing with issues that might be emotional for them. Check with them whether they feel like an equal on the project? Do they feel side-lined? Do they feel like their voice is being heard and their opinions taken on board?
To be fair to this Scope project, I did not have any of these issues, the only nagging doubt was, I’m aware that only approx. 19% of Scope employees are classed as disabled (sorry if this percentage is out of date!), and for a charity for disabled people that figure is pretty low.
And although everyone on the project was great, I did have that slight feeling that when I talked about wanting to start a new career in content design, was I being taken seriously? Or did people think, yeah right, like that’s going to happen. There is still that little voice in my head (not literally! lol) that says ‘who do you think you are kidding, an older woman with disabilities starting out on a new career, the scrapheap is that way’. Everyone on the project has been super friendly and I know this is a career I want to pursue, and this project has been the first rung to that hopefully.
