The Role of Co-Production and Expert Citizens in the Changing Futures Programme

Author: Gemma Finn, Strategic Manager, Changing Futures, Adult Social Care, Stoke-on-Trent City Council

For those who don’t know me, I am Gemma Finn, a Strategic Manager at Stoke-on-Trent City Council for the Changing Futures Programme – a brand-new project funded by The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and The National Lottery Community Fund.

Stoke-on-Trent was fortunate to be one of only 15 areas across the country to secure this funding. A big reason why we were successful was due to using co-production to draft the proposal that went to government.

The aim of the project is to improve outcomes for adults experiencing homelessness, substance use, mental health issues, domestic abuse and contact with the criminal justice system. Changing Futures tests new ways of bringing together public and community sector partners to support people to change their lives.

One of the key principles of the programme is to involve people with lived experience of in the design, delivery and evaluation of services and in governance and decision making. This is coproduction in its truest sense, which makes my heart smile.

Expert Link, a national lived experience organisation, defines co-production as a value-based approach, built on the principle that those who use a service are best placed to help design it. It is about people with lived experience, decision makers and services providers working together to create a decision or service which works well for all involved.

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This Co-Production Week (4-9 July), it is important to celebrate our successes of our work to date in embracing co-production. Expert Citizens, local and national lived experience leaders, are a key partner of The Changing Futures Programme and their input is the golden thread of our project.

Darren Murinas, Chief Executive of Expert Citizens, co-chairs the board with Leader of the Council Abi Brown and his team lead the Recovery Co-Ordination, Workforce Development and Communications provision. From project design, staff recruitment, implementation and development, their role is fundamental, and cannot be underestimated. They inspire me on a daily basis.

Our aim is to build upon this further by adopting a “whole team approach”, being asset based, getting past stigma and labels, instead looking at the skills and strengths, encourage advocates, allow the truth to come out and allowed to be heard, and encourage transparency.

Services should aim to limit the assumptions they make about what people want, let go of power to ensure genuine equal relationships between staff and people with lived experience, provide information training and mentoring for participants and professionals, and create mutually agreeable expectations and responsibilities.

Whilst some of this we already have in progress, we must continue to bang this drum and embed within local and national policy and practice. Join us on this incredible journey!!!

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