Every Week is Co-Production Week!
But co-production, entwined with creative practice, is about a sense of possibility!
From 1-5th July, it’s National Co-production week in the UK.
But in Doncaster we took the collective decision to celebrate it post-election… because every week is co-production week for us! And it also means that the full focus can be on us celebrating and learning more on our journey of coproducing together, in Adult Social Care… and hopefully beyond!
In prep for that, I wanted to write something about why co-production is SO vitally important. Not just to us in social care, or in local government, but in every single part of our lives. It’s also really personally important to me. I wanted to write not only about why it’s important, but why it’s truly a creative act. How both of these things together are, essentially, wrapped up in a yin-yang circle. Which allows us to then challenge power relationships that are embedded into everything, and especially in very assumed fields of work that are challenging and seen as in crisis - such as in health & social care.
For this blog, I am not going to provide strict definitions of creative practice and co-production for a few reasons:
(Some of this post i’ve taken from 1 of my published papers & re-worded to be more accessible, reference at the bottom)
Language constantly evolves, and meanings can change over time and in different contexts. It’s about keeping it real here.
Setting rigid definitions would go against the very nature and philosophy of creative practice and co-production. (Keepin’ it real, again).
Creative practice and co-production are incredibly diverse and context-dependent, so strict definitions might exclude important work.
This flexibility might be exploited, with some people mislabeling their activities as co-production - but that already happens anyways. However, I believe it's better for people to explain their own interpretations and meanings when using these terms.
////////////////////
What is co-production, to me?
Co-production is a powerful approach that redefines how we create and innovate together. It thrives on the synergy of diverse perspectives and life experiences, transforming ideas into actions that are richer and more impactful. That are, at the core, about *people* specifically, and not about system processes. At its core, co-production is about partnership, where everyone’s voice is valued, and every contribution is essential.
Creative practice breathes life into co-production. It’s the spark that ignites imagination and the engine that drives us to think beyond conventional boundaries. Through creative practice, we explore new possibilities, find unexpected solutions, and create more inclusive and dynamic outcomes.
Co-production and creative practice together form a vibrant tapestry, weaving together different threads of knowledge, experience, and imagination. This combination is not just beneficial; it’s crucial. It ensures that the solutions we develop are holistic, resonant, and truly representative of the communities they serve.
.
//////////////////////////////
Why I am committed to coproduction, and so should you.
I am all about the future. And everything I do, is lovingly dedicated to the future. In fact, this need to make the future better is felt more urgently as I am convinced that I won’t have as long of a future as others. It makes it more vitally important to me, despite maybe not getting to see it.
This love for the future is all about how we imagine, relate to and act for the (near) future in the present.
Relationality - a making things together. Relationality offers us a different move, a different story and a different affect.
When I say relationality - I mean that I / we think everyone really truly matters. It’s about being connected to others by love. Perhaps that feels weird and uncomfortable? because how many ‘politicians’ and local, and national, and world leaders & organizations talk about love?
It’s unusual so it’s hard to hear - I know it was really hard for me when i first started working in America. Growing up very poor, working class, & female, I felt completely invisible to the world. I think many of us do depending upon our intersectionalities. Once I had been shown what it felt like to be seen, to be respected, to be properly cared for by folks who had only just met me… I realized that this was a super power!
We all hardly ever hear or feel like we are being treated in our every day life with the care we deserve. Our culture reserves kindness, affection, and love for the private sphere and makes out that love must be earned. Where cynicism is considered smart, and optimism naive. But good co-production helps us to move beyond this damaging story, as it reminds us all that we are all important and cared for and loved. And that our story & ideas matter. We matter.
Love and care are important to understand what we mean by co-production, creative practice and relationality.
For me co-production, entwined with creative practice, is about a sense of possibility. It is in the heart of relationality. Importantly, it is not a naive or romantic idea. To the contrary ! - it is a deliberate choice to “gamble on humanity” - in full awareness of our contextual messes.
.
Such a radical commitment to possibility often comes from those who have borne the brunt of a past and present attempt to foreclose our futures. Because love, as well as grief, and loss, are all often important portals to relationality and designing relationally (done via authentic co-production).
Co-production using creative practice offers us so much more possibility. A possibility of making life better for everyone in whatever area or context we are working in. This requires a different story, told in a different tone, in a multitude of voices, from a very different standing point to the places we usually stand in.
As a noun, creative practice is often thought of as a professional practice. We prefer creative practice in the verb of practicing. A process that is open-ended, allows flow and imagination - one concerned with the making of life and an active way of radical caring. Practicing/making/designing relationally - as is done in authentic co-production - means creating the awareness that we are all inextricable linked and in a relationship with one another.
We are a complex webs of relationships compromising of minds, hearts, communities, knowledges, experiences , etc. The webs are also entangled into the stories that we tell about them. That’s where creative practice comes in, with its pivotal place in the true co-production.
creative practice has many methods and outputs - from the articulation of the boundary-spanning value of drawings and illustrations as modes of sharing knowledge, to being able to express ourselves; things that are hard to explain - in different formats - such as poetry, music, film and dance. This helps us to explore functional and emotional aspects of experience, as well as envisioning new possibilities of what could be.
Creative practices aid exploration of different perspectives and help to build empathy for others’ experience. They generate objects which are effective at expressing and sharing alternative realities and helping diverse contributors co-create new things together.
Creative practices help professionals shake some of their learned baggage of certain things not being possible. They do this by getting the whole body involved in thinking and feeling. When people perform, role-play, or create images or artifacts to represent experiences, processes, systems, or ideas, they naturally use their entire body, all their senses, and their emotions. This approach mirrors how we use evidence in real-life behaviour and practice, making it more authentic and engaging and showing actually - we can do things differently. It is possible.
And lastly, but what really gets me excited! Is that creative practices are proactive and encourage activation and action!! What we really need. Action! Challenge the status quo!
I don’t think this point gets talked about enough. Criticality is key. Co-production, when done right, can be a truly radical act. So you gotta be fully in. The Latin root of the word “radical” is to: ‘denote or relating to the roots of a word/something’. Literally the grounding of relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something.
In adult social care, we are changing the fundamental nature of the story and how we do it. It is about action and rights!
Creative practices are fulfilling, in part, because a person sees progress. A ‘thing’ emerges and takes shape. Perhaps most significantly, when curated appropriately, people can quite literally see their knowledge contribution in the things (products, services and systems) that emerge. In Local Government, it can takes literally years to see the progress of something you’ve been pushing for/working on for quite some time. So visible progress and sense of ownership are key factors in catalysing motivation, creating a sense of achievement and ultimately empowerment.
At the heart of co-production is the challenge to the power of decided whose knowledge counts, how different forms of knowledge are accounted for, and by whom. Creative Practice allows to bring in so many ways of which relationality can come in, & in doing so challenges and changes these power relationships.
As I referenced in my first blog on “believe” - using a Ted Lasso quote - Our nervous systems are primed for dealing with fear - with reactive responses such as flight, fight, freeze and appease. These are littered everywhere in the normal dominant stories we have been told and believe. But the experiences of being loved, supported, inspired and interconnected opens our senses of what is possible… a chance to let us tell and believe a different story.
A loving future, begins with a loving present. from this place, we expand our capacity to look for joyful and fulfilling possibilities imagined with tenderness and respect, so that the future may decide to stay*. And we can once and for all, change these stories and change the world around us.
So in acknowledging our co-production fortnight, and for the rest of our lives; you have my commitment to co-production. My respect, my love, my hope, my creative practice skills, and my passion - and my urgency - to work together, in joy & criticality, to make things better. To re-create our world over.
To making adult social care truly relational and human - full of joy, hope, fun and care; designed by you, with you.
Let’s champion co-production, embrace creative practice, and celebrate the incredible potential that emerges when we collaborate openly and creatively. Together, we can achieve extraordinary things!
