A Meeting of Minds: How Co-production Benefits People, Professionals and Organisations

Introduction

This research explores how co-production works in community projects. It looks at how people with lived experience work with professionals to design and provide services. The report is aimed at funders, organisations and practitioners who want to involve communities in decisions.

Findings

The research found that co-production can bring many benefits. It can:

• improve services by making them more accessible, authentic, and responsive

• increase self-worth and confidence of people taking part, and build new skills

• help practitioners to better understand lives of people they support

• provide a chance to think differently and question established ways of working

The study concluded that:

• co-production takes time and resources, including time to build up relationships of trust between the people involved

• everyone involved needs to approach it with an open, flexible mindset, as it can mean working outside the established way of doing things

• it’s important to be open to new ideas, share power and responsibility, and be ready to be challenged

• honesty and transparency about expectations and limitations is critical

• co-production is not a one-off piece of work, but something that will evolve