Thoughts from Paul Ballantyne - SCN team member

Thanks to our very own SCN team member Paul Ballantyne for sharing his thoughts and posing questions to get us thinking during #CoProWeekScot and beyond.

I was looking over the sessions during Co-Production Week and seeing such a wide variety of topics but also so many common themes.

I found myself asking do we focus a lot on the commonalities around mutual understanding, key principles and, of course, values that underpin co-production? Does this miss out on making more of the contextual diversity that, in my view, applies if people are to make co-production meaningful? I’m wondering how we put it into practice in different settings e.g. in health and social care, in housing, in education, in place-making – I could go on.

We hear phrases like ‘scaling up’ and ‘rolling out,’ maybe even ‘mainstreaming’ but for me recognising and working with context – both community and organisational – is vital. In different contexts the issues, challenges and opportunities will vary.

Sharing lessons and learning can help us examine our own practice in light of what we learn – using that learning to shape our own thinking, and influence how we do things whichever setting we work in.

Of course, there are some fundamentals in all settings, such as shifting the balance of power, recognising and valuing lived experience, but again context influences and affects this. This becomes all the more important if we are to try to effect some kind of system change alongside or on the back of individual practice.

Lastly, I also pondered if we all go looking for events, conferences and the like in our own sector or setting staying in our comfort zone. Maybe we should make a point of challenging ourselves and going to something during Co-Production Week where people are sharing their experiences of co-production in a project or setting where we know little of the subject matter?

There is much to be learned not just in ‘comparing’ but also in a bit of ‘contrasting’ – and on that point I’ll now go book for an event where I’m asking ‘what’s that all about’?