Launch of Co-production Oxfordshire’s Working Together Handbook

Featured article - 14 October 2019
By Danie Woodbridge, Co-production Lead, Oxfordshire County Council

Knowing how to do Co-production can be daunting. That’s why Co-production Oxfordshire has created the Working Together Handbook – a helpful and user-friendly collection of our best practice guidance to getting it right.

Co-production is not a new or difficult concept. In simple terms, it means working together to change or improve something, or problem-solving together. But it is a different way of working for many people and organisations, and this can often mean it’s a bit of a challenge to know where to start.

We say that there is no roadmap for co-production; the process will look different each time, as the nature of the ‘problem’, and the group of people involved in solving it, will vary.

Co-production handbook

• Download the handbook / guidance sheets / best practice grab sheets

The Handbook is designed to help anyone do co-production, whether you are new to it entirely, or have years of experience. In it, we share the key principles and methods that will support you with the process.

It has very much been shaped by what people involved in a number of different ‘scoping’ sessions said they would want to get from this kind of resource. As a whole, it represents two years’ worth of distilled learning and experience from within the Oxfordshire Co-production Programme, and includes contributions from countless numbers of people.

As this learning continues, so will this Handbook develop. The Working Together Handbook has been co-designed by members of:

• Team-Up: Oxfordshire’s Co-production Board
• Oxfordshire’s Co-production Champions
• Oxfordshire County Council’s co-production project members
• Oxfordshire County Council’s Co-production Team.

In order to stay aligned to the principles of co-production - those of collaboration, sharing knowledge and promoting and developing our strengths - we have applied a Creative Commons License to the Handbook, which means anyone can re-use it, and re-shape it, but we’d love it if you shared where you got it from. Just grab our logos from the Handbook.

You might notice that we’ve kept the format as friendly and easy to use as possible, going for simplicity over style. All of the artwork, colours, and content have been influenced by members of Co-production Oxfordshire.

We hope you find our Handbook useful. We would love to hear your comments or feedback, especially if you have a story to share about the co-production you are doing, and in particular if you find any part of the Handbook especially helpful.

Contact us at: coproduction@oxfordshire.gov.uk or find us on Twitter @OxonCopro

• Co-production Oxfordshire on Twitter @OxonCopro