Practice examples: Co-production in social care

Co-production in local authorities

• Birmingham Council
  Using the skills, knowledge and views of the community.
• Buckinghamshire’s Time Credits scheme
  How Time Credits are used to support a prevention scheme in Buckinghamshire
• Co-production within the Supported Living Framework for people with learning difficulties
  City and County of Swansea Council introduced co-production into the development of a new Supported Living Framework for people with learning difficulties.
• Developing a framework for co-production in a local authority
  Islington Council Adult Social Care has worked with people who use services and carers to develop a full framework for co-production.

Co-production in organisations providing support and housing

• Co-production in a residential care home
  An example of co-production with people with dementia, their families and their staff working in a residential care home.
• Co-producing better quality support
  Improving the quality of support in residential care homes through a project working collaboratively with older people, carers, frontline staff, managers and researchers.
• Co-production in support, care and accommodation services
  Look Ahead Care and Support works with the 8,000 service users in all parts of the organisation.

Co-production in organisations that support people in the community

• People with learning difficulties living in the community
  How KeyRing networks work with people with learning difficulties and the communities where they live to improve their life chances.
• Working with seldom heard groups to reduce health inequalities
  Macmillan Cancer support has a programme using co-production approaches with seldom heard groups to reduce health inequality.
• Co-production with young disabled people in transition
  The charity MacIntyre runs a project to support young disabled people making the transition from children’s to adult services
• Self-advocacy for people with learning difficulties
  People with learning difficulties in Leicestershire set up the Speaking for Myself Project, with support from the Thera Group, to help people to have more control over their lives and develop peer support.
• Managing long-term health conditions
  Wellbeing Our Way is a co-produced programme run by National Voices, a coalition of health and social care charities, to support people to manage long-term health conditions.
• Mental health recovery colleges
  The You in Mind Mental Health Care Pathway and Recovery Colleges programme is co-produced by people who use services and carers with a range of health and social care professionals in Northern Ireland.
• Engagement coaches working with staff
  The national mental health charity Mind employs people who use services to work with other staff to support them to embed co-production in the organisation.
• Carers’ wellbeing
  A project to provide respite for carers using direct payments.
• Club for people with dementia
  The Healthy Living Club offers a range of self-directed activities for people with dementia who take part in all aspects of how the club is run.

Co-production with young people in or leaving care

• Improving local authority support for care leavers
  Cheshire East Council has co-produced work as part of the national New Belongings programme to improve support for care leavers.
• Co-designing better support for care leavers in transition
  This project was co-produced by care leavers and Argyll and Bute Council and other agencies to improve support for care leavers in the transition to adulthood.