Those involved in the project met for the first time on Friday 25 January, often fighting their way through snow to reach Stirling University.\u00a0 The aims of the day were:<\/p>\n
The day involved a mix of group activities and informal inputs about co-production and talking mats.\u00a0 We also had some time at the end with the project teams to talk through their plans for improving practice.<\/p>\n
Session 1. What\u2019s in the bag?<\/strong><\/p>\n We started the day with a group exercise \u2013 \u201cwhat\u2019s in the bag\u201d.\u00a0 We picked items out of a bag to help us talk together about the assumptions we were bringing to the project. Some of the objects we pulled out and discussed were:<\/p>\n We then discussed what wasn\u2019t in the bag that it was important to include, we discussed how something flexible would help to emphasis the importance of flexibility, which is essential for co-production.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Session 2. Co-production exploration (Andy Millar, Angela Henderson & Angela Halpin)<\/strong><\/p>\n We heard from Andy Millar, Angela Henderson, Angela Halpin from SCLD about their experiences of co-production and the lessons they’ve learnt.\u00a0 \u00a0Angela Halpin explained that \u201cCo-production means working as a team\u201d.\u00a0 They explained that if co-production is working you see a shift in power and it\u2019s clear it\u2019s working \u201cwhen it feels like a family\u201d.\u00a0 They explained that in a co-production group it is important that it\u2019s the same people to build trust and relationships, as Angela explained it worked well because \u201cWe all started together and learnt each others feelings\u201d.\u00a0 People involved in the co-production groups often have a capacity building plan to support their involvement, there was interest in the group in seeing examples of these plans.<\/p>\n The presenters explained their Top tips for co-production:<\/strong><\/p>\n They also discussed the importance of capturing all views, prioritising focus through doing work beforehand to project plan.\u00a0 An important aspect to co-production working is around having shared goals and shared values.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Session 3. Talking mats: Adult support and protection (Lois Cameron)<\/strong><\/p>\n Lois Cameron from Talking mats talked about a consultancy project funded by the Scottish Government to make the Adult support and protection accessible to people with communication difficulties.\u00a0 \u00a0The project involved providing training and producing a pack to accompany the training.<\/p>\n Improving understanding about the Adult Support and Protection Act is a challenge because all the terms within it are defined in relation to each other, such as harm and risk.\u00a0 It presented challenges around how Talking Mats could produce symbols for these concepts.<\/p>\n Another challenge related to the issue of time raised in the previous session.\u00a0 Lois also explored how the process of tendering often limits the involvement of people with communication issues, with money being committed to doing something within tight timescales.<\/p>\n One way Talking Mats reduced the impact of timescales in their project on adult support and protection was to create an advisory group for the work, so it wasn\u2019t co-production but it did allow for the involvement of people with communication difficulties.\u00a0 But this was a compromise for them!<\/p>\n The advisory group consisted of 8 people, four people had a learning disability and four people had had a stroke.\u00a0 They worked together to support each other and people learnt from each other.\u00a0 One of the issues the group were tasked with working through was how to produce a symbol to express vulnerability.\u00a0 The image was of someone in a wheelchair on a platform with a ramp on one side and steps on the other.<\/p>\n The key thing to making something accessible is finding a structure on which to hang the information.\u00a0 The structure they created for the training was:<\/p>\n It can be helpful to think about metaphors that really work, and which speak on an emotional level.\u00a0 For instance, the symbol for risk involves crocodiles in water with a person walking across a tightrope, the same image is then repeated with them walking across a bridge, indicating the reduced risk when supports are in place.\u00a0 \u00a0Obviously, this symbol won\u2019t work for anyone who has not heard the crocodile story.<\/p>\n They designed the workshops and trained 11 people to deliver the workshops.\u00a0 They also trained advisory group members about how to give feedback, they gave feedback to the workshop leaders.\u00a0 Everyone found the idea of getting feedback challenging but one of the most useful things.<\/p>\n Of the 43 people who attended the workshops only 1 had heard of the Adult Support and Protection Act beforehand.<\/p>\n The workshops were produced in pairs because the potential for disclosure during the sessions was high.<\/p>\n It because obvious that some of the advisory group members became expert in the Adult Support and Protection Act.\u00a0 Lois explained that she hoped that the advisory group members would be able to go on to deliver the training, but support would need to be provided to allow this and at present the relevant funding has not been provided.<\/p>\n We then talked about the value of people with communication difficulties providing training on these issues.\u00a0 Angela Halpin talked about her role in the Good Life Group which is a group of people with learning disabilities who have provided a range of training, various video clips about the group are available here: http:\/\/goodlifegroup.org.uk\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Session 4. Ideas for the projects <\/strong><\/p>\n The locality teams spent some time with the project team discussing their initial ideas for the projects they wished to develop.\u00a0 These ideas included:<\/p>\n Kathryn and Beth will be providing support to the teams individually to further develop these ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Those involved in the project met for the first time on Friday 25 January, often fighting their way through snow to reach Stirling University.\u00a0 The aims of the day were: Getting to know each other Share experiences and ideas The day involved a mix of group activities and informal inputs about co-production and talking mats.\u00a0 … Continue reading Getting to know each other and sharing ideas: Report on sharing workshop<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/asp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/asp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/asp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/asp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/asp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/asp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/asp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/asp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/asp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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