{"id":433,"date":"2015-03-19T17:11:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T17:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/innovate\/?p=433"},"modified":"2017-02-03T12:40:08","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T12:40:08","slug":"contemporary-coproduction-theory-policy-and-practice-guest-blog-dr-stuart-muirhead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iriss.org.uk\/innovate\/2015\/03\/19\/contemporary-coproduction-theory-policy-and-practice-guest-blog-dr-stuart-muirhead\/","title":{"rendered":"Contemporary Coproduction: theory policy and practice (guest blog: Dr Stuart Muirhead)"},"content":{"rendered":"
The day started well for me with a morning walk through the rather picturesque grounds of the Stirling University Campus. It sits in a prime location at the bottom of the Ochil Hills, and it looked particularly nice on a crisp, sunny morning. This stroll was followed by arrival and a welcome hot coffee, while happily bumping into Claire Lightowler<\/a> of the Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice<\/a> on the way into the room.<\/p>\n Richard Simmons<\/a> introduced the day as we got settled and we went straight into a couple of presentations by folk from the University of Birmingham. Catherine Needham<\/a> explored what we consider as evidence, reminding us of the importance and value of lived experience and practice wisdom, as well as the more formalised evidence we are all perhaps more familiar with. Two things really hit home to me here. Firstly, coproduction must be additive and not substitutive. In other words – we must add value from coproducing, we can\u2019t just fill gaps. Secondly, processes and ways of coproduction can\u2019t just be copied from context to context. These processes shouldn\u2019t be replicated but they should be assimilated into different places.<\/p>\n Next up was Tony \u2018Tornado\u2019 Bovaird<\/a> from INLOGOV and Governance International<\/a>. He gave a fantastic overview of where value sits in our society – is this in the formalised economy, or is it in the informal and social interactions that we take part in every day? We must re-balance service outcomes, personal outcomes and social capital outcomes. He also highlighted that we have a rich resource base in this country and it is not a lack of resources that we suffer from but a resource matching problem. We need to work with who is up for working together and not ignore the real strengths that exist.<\/p>\n After the break, when I had the chance to talk to Claire Brynner <\/a>of What Works Scotland<\/a>, we had two more presentations around the theme of \u2018disrupting coproduction\u2019. The first from Julie Christie<\/a> who is exploring dementia in resilience in her PhD project. She ended with point that really seemed to resonate with the room – is coproduction done with active citizens or does coproduction help in activating citizens? Do the loudest voices get heard? Are these the white middle classes with loudspeakers and a voice this is disproportionately heard by those in power (a point highlighted by Peter Matthews<\/a>)? Julia Fitzpatrick<\/a> from Horizon Housing Association<\/a> was our final speaker of the day and made some extremely pertinent points. The one that hit home with me was that we must not\u00a0 \u201cequate a place at a table with involvement\u201d – there are always power issues being played out and we must recognise these, and address them. In the following discussion, power came out as a central theme, and there was a reminder given that coproduction should be about increasing social justice and equality – just as public services should be.<\/p>\n After our impressive lunch of bento boxes and fruit we started enacting a bit more coproduction during the day. We went into a World Cafe with groups moving about the room. Each group started with a question and the discussion was recorded by a scribe. As the groups moved round every ten minutes, the scribe stayed put. Every time the group did move on, they left a provocative question for the incoming group. I scribed and you can see the direction of the discussion below:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Questions<\/b><\/td>\n | \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Broad discussion journey…<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\nGroup 1 – Opening question<\/b>Can coproduction allow for resources to be redistributed to create more equitable outcomes?<\/b><\/td>\n | \n |
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