Recovery Colleges and Co-production Part 1

Underpinning all aspects of Recovery and wellbeing is co-production. This entails active, and supported partnerships between the College and all others who have a stake in the work. At an individual level, this means shared decision making between Trainers and the students they support; at a college team level, it means engagement with current and former students in making decisions about how things are done: from day to day routines to documentation, staff recruitment, curriculum and course development etc. At a service level it means having access to a properly recruited, trained and supported pool of trainers with subject expertise, lived experience and trainers with professional expertise who can be accessed, according to strengths, interests and experience to co-produce and co-deliver training, to develop, review and evaluate the college and to support students to access the college.

In this workshop, we will define co-production and how it works in our everyday practice. This will include the principles used to model co-production and how this approach can benefit those who use our services.

We will consider current evidence and will spend some time thinking about what that means and how this approach can be implemented in a Recovery College. We will look at how co-production in a Recovery College is different to service user involvement and how, when we work collaboratively, we can create an environment in a Recovery College where co-production can flourish.