Bespoke Co-production Training for Barnardo’s staff

20 October 2020

SCIE and Co-production Works, a specialist consultancy, co-designed and delivered four training sessions to 75 Barnardo’s staff. Barnardo’s are committed to developing co-production skills across all functions of the organisation. The voice and influence of children, young people and families are integral to the charity’s corporate strategy, as well as fundamental to current strategic vision for supporting widespread systems change.

The training design followed a very collaborative approach. Staff were involved in the process through a series of focus groups, site visits and meetings. There was also engagement with young people supported by Barnardo’s.

This approach enabled the trainers to gain a rich understanding of Barnardo’s history and context. In particular it was useful to establish what skills, knowledge and experience around co-production already existed in Barnardo's and what the aspirations were for developing co-production.

The resulting training followed a highly participative, blended learning model using lots of small experiential groups. It was important to acknowledge that some staff had really good co-production experience already and this could be used to help others gain confidence and knowledge. Two short films ensured that the voice of Barnardo’s clients was central to sessions.

The training evaluation showed that the sessions were highly valued by participants with the majority saying that it had the potential to make a positive contribution to their work. The final session was delivered remotely with no change to how well it was received. In the words of one participant ‘..really motivational and authentic. Great job, I loved it and I’m a real fidget and can struggle to sit still and focus online.’

• Co-production works