Coming Together to Co-design Co-production Week Scotland 2021
Dawn Brown, Development Manager at SCDC, reflects on the first meeting of the Co-pro Week 2021 Planning Group.
Co-pro Week 2021 takes place 22 - 26 November 2021.
Can you believe it’s the tenth anniversary of co-pro week? Time surely flies when you’re having fun.
Following a call to members to help us plan co-production week a short term planning group was setup - a small but mighty group of people gathered to start thinking about Co-Pro week 2021, shaping the theme and content of the week.
As ever, the conversation started with the Scottish weather – and who had a wash out, but we rapidly moved on to the core of the meeting.
Disruption as a catalyst for change
We couldn’t avoid discussions around how Covid-19 has interrupted our lives, and the lives of those we interact with – as volunteers, as workers and as people. However, the members of the group also saw the disruption as a catalyst for change. How do we harness this and turn it into something good that will enable lasting and meaningful change in our communities?
How will we work in ways that value people? How will we empower people to continue the changes that the were implemented over the last 18 months? How can we get to the root of some of the big issues within our villages, towns and cities – and all the very rural bits in between!
Covid-19 exposed the power imbalances within our communities –and we saw how some communities responded, for example, the community larders, pantries and foodbanks supporting some of the most vulnerable with dignity and care. So how can co-production approaches help and move conversations out of listening mode and into action?
Facing up to the challenge
Systems change and finding new ways of doing things has never been easy, and there is a tension of the comfort of going back to old ways of working for some people, whilst seeing how much has been able to be done throughout Covid-19 by taking risks and trying new things.
How can we embrace the resourcefulness of this time, and ensure that the power of the previously known doesn’t reassert itself? The creativity, passion and care that allowed organisations, people and communities to start to make changes. It’s vital we don’t lose the way we’ve faced up to the barriers and challenges in the way we work.
A number of the group shared tools and insight into how they had been working, and an excitement at seeing change, and a more flexible, less risk-averse way of working taking hold, increasing participation and involvement whilst building new alliances.
Next steps
Covid-19 allowed us to stop and examine what had happened, and to accept that what had happened previously was not always very good, so going forward how can we embed co-production on a wider scale to help us all work in ways that value people?
The conversation is only beginning, we’re looking forward to sharing more about Co-Pro week in Novemberand hope you’re as excited about it as we are! Get in touch and let us know what you want to hear about, learn about and contribute so we can all co-design the future!
