Adam Webb, was a member of the Steering Group for the IMPACT/EMADASS Waiting Lists Demonstrator and co-chair of one of the project’s Task and Finish groups.
Throughout his involvement in the project, Adam shared both his professional experience as someone who worked in adult social care, and his lived experience as a carer for his mother.
We’re delighted that he has taken the time to write this blog exploring his experience of co-production across his career and within this project.
I’ve worked in adult social care for nearly 20 years, and in that time, I’ve seen an increase in the use of co-production, so that hearing about it in a wide range of contexts is now commonplace. Perhaps the cynical part of me has always thought of co-production as a bit of a ‘unicorn’ – something mythical, because it’s often talked about but rarely actually seen. What I mean by that, is that I haven’t often observed what I would call ‘meaningful co-production’ – where differences in power are reduced, most of it still instead retained by the ‘professionals’; the views of people involved as ‘experts by experience’ not always being incorporated in a sincere and impactful way.
Just some of the challenges I have noticed along the way, some of which hinder this sharing of power, include:
- That co-production takes an up-front investment of time and resources, which can sometimes be at odds with the short timescales of developing a new policy or commissioning a new service, which can stifle the important input of people who use services and carers.
- That co-production often takes place very late in the design process. So, we are asking people to influence policies or services which have already largely been determined. True co-production in my view is about helping to make the decisions on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of what is being developed or decided, not just the details of ‘how’, ‘when’ and ‘by whom’ something should be delivered, after the decision has already been made.
- That the questions we ask or areas we discuss are very narrow in their scope, whereas people’s lives are in fact complex and nuanced, and we lose so much valuable knowledge by constraining people’s experiences within the confines of pre-determined parameters.
A common trend since the personalisation agenda in the mid to late 2000s has been to ask the question “What does good look like?” – i.e. to try and identify good practice and document what makes it good, with a view to replicating that learning elsewhere. So, in the case of co-production, we might ask ourselves “What does good co-production look like?”.
I’ve been doing co-production with IMPACT since April 2024, but this time, for the first time, as an ‘expert by experience’ (I have been a carer for eight years). So this has given me a chance to see things from the other side. Over this time, I have been part of an experience that has felt validating, safe and kind. Everyone has supported each other, whether they are a ‘professional’ or an ‘expert by experience’ and everyone’s contributions have been valued equally.
It has felt that we are all working together as a team, towards a common goal, allowing everyone’s individual strengths to shine, and that divide between ‘professionals’ and the ‘people with lived experience’ has almost completely melted away. This, I believe, is down to excellent facilitation by Lorraine Mighty and Naomi Russell, but also the thoughtful contributions of everyone who has been involved and the kind, respectful and supportive way everyone has conducted themselves.
It’s as if we have all been part of something very special, and it has felt meaningful. So as well asking the question “what does good look like?” when it comes to co-production, I propose that we should ask another question: “what does good feel like?”. This may be moving away from tangible things that we try and document when trying to ascertain what good looks like, but that is deliberate. It’s an attempt to acknowledge that everyone is different, that we cannot always boil down the nuances of people’s experiences into a few bullet points, and that co-production, like life, is about compromises and an inherent ‘messiness’. We should embrace that messiness! ‘Good co-production’ may look different to different people, but I think anyone involved will instinctively, almost subconsciously, know (or feel) when it is meaningful.
So, whilst I could try and explain to you what ‘good looks like‘ (and our collective views of this have already been captured by the IMPACT team), I will instead answer a different question: “What does meaningful co-production feel like?”. In my experience, it feels very special indeed.