FLARE Member, Grace shares her experience on delivering a workshop at the Making Participation Works Practitioners Conference.
At the Making Participation Work Practitioners Conference in October, I co-designed and co-delivered a workshop discussing whether professionals are truly working in co-production. I did this with a fellow FLARE member, the SEND youth advisory group to the Department for Education, and a CDC Programme Officer.
The conference is part of the Making Participation Work programme and brings together participation, co-production, engagement practitioners, and strategic managers to discuss how SEND youth voice and engagement plays a role in developing quality local area provision. The purpose of the learning event is to encourage professionals to think about how to deliver participation and co-production at a strategic level across children and young people’s health, education and social care.
Our workshop explored how youth-led, rather than organisation-led co-production and co-design works in practice. We told the professionals about the pros and cons of youth-led versus organisation and sector-led engagement for young people, and about how young people like to be included in co-production. We outlined how FLARE is supported by CDC to develop their priorities, the work we do in the group, and results of this.
In the workshop we looked at different forms of co-production. For example, sometimes co-production is youth-led and other times it might be led by organisations. Different forms can be useful depending on the situation, but I think organisations need to always make space for young people to lead the co-production they are involved in!
I wanted to present at the Making Participation Work Practitioners Conference because I want to help professionals learn about the importance of co-production, especially about giving young people the opportunity to lead and direct it. Some of the best co-production I have been involved in is when young people take the lead!
I think good co-production means that the output is something accessible and usable for disabled young people, this is because listening to people with lived experiences means you get to hear new ideas and perspectives you might not have thought of or considered. When co-production isn’t effectively utilised, the output can be something that isn’t helpful for disabled young people.
Professionals need to hear directly from young people more often! They could make it easier for children and young people to get their voices heard by letting us communicate in a way that is most comfortable for us. I think having information made more accessible and making opportunities to engage in co-production better known would help too. When organisations offer compensation for my time, travel expenses and remunerate me for my knowledge and effort I feel more valued, so I am more willing to engage in co-production. Feedback is really important too, we want to know how we are (or aren’t) making a difference. It is also key to make sure that young people’s voices are included at every stage of co-production, right from the beginning to the very end.