Backing the Future Coproduction

8/8/2019 Backing the Future Coproduction

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A guide to

co-producing

childrens services

Backing the Future: Practical guide 1


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ne is an independent think-and-do tank that inspires

and demonstrates real economic well-being.

We aim to improve quality o lie by promoting

innovative solutions that challenge mainstreamthinking on economic, environmental and social

issues. We work in partnership and put people and

the planet rst.

Action or Children is one o the UKs leading

childrens charities. We are committed to helping the

most vulnerable children and young people in the UK

break through injustice, deprivation and inequality, so

they can achieve their ull potential.

This guide is a supplement to a larger report, Backing the Future: why investing in

children is good for us all. It is the culmination o a programme o research carried

out by ne (the new economics oundation) with the support o Action or Children.

This guide has been produced by ne in collaboration with a number o dierentstakeholders including Action or Children. However, the overall contents o the guide

refect the views o its authors.


3/16A guide to co-producing childrens services 1

This guide is a supplement to a

larger report, Backing the Future:

why investing in children is good for

us all, which is the culmination o a

programme o research carried out by

ne (the new economics oundation)

and Action or Children. This guide

looks at how practitioners can use a

co-production approach to service

delivery.

Backing the Future demonstratesthe economic and social case or

preventing social problems rom

emerging in the rst place, rather than

xing them ater they have already

occurred. It also shows the need

or early intervention i and when

problems do arise to stop them rom

becoming entrenched. By making

the transition to a more preventativesystem, the UK will improve child well-

being, create a better and more just

society, and support our economy by

being less wasteul economically and

making ar better use o our shared but

increasingly scarce public resources.

Backing the Future argues that a key

element o shiting to a preventativesystem o childrens services requires

a new way o working, which

nurtures the ull range o issues

aecting childrens lives. As well as

the structural actors aecting the

circumstances o childrens lives (e.g.,

poverty, inequality), the psychological

and social aspects o childrens well-

being are also vital or improving

outcomes. From our research, we

identied six key pathways to well-

being, which should be promoted

through childrens services:

1. Link up and link in

2. Think amily

3. Promote the positive

4. Encourage action

5. Factor in un

6. Recognise childrens wider world

We ound that these pathways can

be enabled by taking a co-production

approach to targeted and universal

service delivery.

There has been increasing interest

in co-production as a mechanism

or embedding more participatory

approaches in service delivery in recentyears.1,2 Co-production takes a slightly

dierent tack to normal engagement

practices. It ocuses less on identiying

and responding to a childs need

or problem in avour o a reciprocal

approach, which builds on a childs

interests, knowledge, experience, skills

and support networks.3

This guide has been written to

complement a recommendation in

the overall project report suggesting

that the benets o a co-production

approach to delivering childrens

services be evaluated as part o a

national pilot unded by the lead

departments or children and amily

services across the our nations. Itdraws on nes general work in this

area and six service-level case studies,

Why this guide? Why now?


4/16A guide to co-producing childrens services2

undertaken as part o this programme

o research.

Who should use this guide?

We have written this guide to assist

childrens services proessionals and

practitioners to put the principles o co-

production into practice. Central to this

guide is a co-production ramework

that can be used by proessionals

to sel-assess the way in which they

work on a regular basis. A selection

o ideas taken rom practice-based

settings should help proessionals put

mechanisms in place to encouragechildrens active participation and

engagement in service delivery. This

guide has been designed to be equally

applicable to proessionals working in

both targeted and universal services.

It is also relevant or project or service

managers supporting proessionals in

the implementation o decisions on the

way services are delivered.

What is co-production?

A denition

Produce: to make something or bring

something into existence

Co: together; with

Co-production emphasises doingthings with children as opposed

to doing things to children or or

children. It is a strengths-based

approach, which recognises that

all children, young people and their

amilies have their own sets o skills,

knowledge and experiences which

they can bring to the table.

Beyond voice

Engaging with children in the co-

production o services goes beyond

consultation in decision-making

processes. A co-production approach

sees the purpose o engagement to

provide children and young peoplewith the opportunity to be the change.

To achieve this, it ocuses on children

as part o their own solution.

From xer to acilitator the role o

the proessional

It is the role o the proessional to

shape the conditions or co-production

to take place. At the heart o this roleis the need to provide encouragement

and support to enable children, young

people and their amilies to put their

positive resources and abilities to use.

The role o the proessional becomes

less about being a xer o problems

and more about being a acilitator

o solutions. A acilitator will actively

recognise and engage the things

children are able to do or are interested

in. In doing so, they naturally ocus

on the things that are working well

to create positive experiences and

sustainable behaviour change driven

by the childs intrinsic goals and

aspirations. This involves recognising

that being proessional is not alwaysdened as having all the answers

and that in asking others or help,

an opportunity is created or them to

contribute.

There are our key principles o a

co-production approach to service

delivery, which orm the basis o this

guide:



1. Valuing children and young people

as assets.

2. Celebrating children and young

peoples contribution.

3. Reciprocal working.

4. Growing social networks.

Below we summarise the main

guidance emerging rom the research

ndings about how to best implement

each principle.

Valuing children and young people

as assets

P Work to identiy and put to use

childrens assets starting rom

who children are and what their

interests are.

PEnable children to gure out whatthey are good at and how they

are able to infuence events and

situations.

P Assets can include lie experience,

knowledge, skills, talents, energy,

and enthusiasm incorporate them

into the design and delivery o

services.

Celebrating children and young

peoples contribution

PProvide positive eedback andpraise or things children have done

well and tried hard at.

P Build opportunities or positive

experiences and rewards into

budgets.

P Ensure there is a balance between

extrinsic rewards treats and

intrinsic rewards, which may involveworking with children to identiy

their goals to help them work

towards them.

Reciprocal working

P Provide opportunities to act as

both a recipient and a provider o

services.

P Enable sel-organisation within

individuals or teams in avour o

direction rom above.

P Foster a sense o shared

responsibility or service delivery

and a culture o give and take.

P Lead by example in the working

relationships you orm with children

so they incorporate a sense o

mutuality, empathy and respect.

Growing social networks

P Find opportunities or children to

use their assets to support one

another in the service setting.

P Create opportunities or children

to connect with other children

who live in their wider community

(dened by interest or geographical

location). Consider this to be a core

service activity.

P Actively bring children into contact

with other groups in the community.

P Recognise amilies, carers and

community members as potential

members o wider networks.



Focus Box 1: Co-producing in dierent service settings

Targeted service setting

Glyncoch Youth Time Banking

Project, Pontypridd, South WalesGlyncoch is a housing estate on

the outskirts o Pontypridd in the

South Wales valleys. Many o

the 3000 residents ace a range

o socioeconomic challenges,

including high unemployment, high

levels o child poverty and low

educational attainment.

Glyncoch Youth Time Banking

Projectworks on the simple

principle that or every hour that

participants give to the youth group

and the wider community, they earn

one time credit. These time credits

can be used to go on youth trips

and take part in activities.

The project starts rom the

existing skills and talents o the

young people involved. They are

encouraged to spend time thinking

about the positive things and needs

within their community and then

they are encouraged to think about

how they can use their own existing

skills, talents and experiences tond solutions to problems. This has

led to a number o projects including

environmental projects, peer-

learning projects (e.g., sexual health

sessions), the development o an

arson DVD, running youth sessions

and support or other community

groups.

Universal service setting

Learning to Lead at the Blue

School, SomersetLearning to Leadwas developed

by a teacher and a parent in the

Blue School in Wells, Somerset, to

actively involve children and young

people in all aspects o their lives

and community as stakeholders.

Students identiy what they think

is needed to improve their school

and then sel-elect themselves

into student-led teams, in which

they develop their ideas and are

responsible or turning their ideas

into positive action.

At the Blue School over 250 o the

1500 students are involved in all

aspects o the school community in

22 teams, including Healthy Living,Arica School, Beautiul School and

Finance Support. Students learn

team working, agenda planning,

goal setting, budgeting, the

distinction between governance,

management and action, and

the meaning o accountability,

transparency, and responsibility. The

Healthy Schools programme has

given nancial and practical support

in recognition o how Learning to

Leadnaturally develops the Every

Child Matters agenda and helps

bring Healthy Schools status to the

school.

A national pilot is being run in an

additional 10 secondary schoolsacross the UK and eeder primary

schools.


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Focus Box 2: Benefts o co-producing

nes interviews with practitioners rom six dierent service settings highlighted

a number o benefts associated with taking a co-production approach to

delivering childrens services:

Higher child well-being

p higher sel-esteem

p skills development

p stronger social skills

p wider social networks

p more positive emotions

p higher motivation

A co-production

approach

P Valuing

assets

P Celebrating

contribution

P Reciprocal

working

P Growing social

networks

Higher sta well-being

p more rewarding work

p eeling inspired

p increased motivation or a

project

A better service

p less stigma not seen as a

last resort option

p a more attractive service in

touch with users

p improved services that

beneft rom children seeing

through problems

Improved community relations

p young people are more

engaged in school and

community lie

p breakdown o stereotypes

p stronger mutual support

systems

p higher levels o care or each

other and the community

A guide to co-producing childrens services 5


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Co-production

self-assessment

framework


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Using the co-productionself-assessment framework

In order to assess how your service

or project is aring in terms o co-

production, we have devised a sel-

assessment ramework to reect the

our key principles. There are some key

things to note about the ramework:

P It was developed ollowing a series

o interviews with practitioners

working in six dierent childrens

projects, which were taking place

in both universal and targeted

services:

P Learning to Lead: a schools-

based initiative (Focus Box 1)

P Caring Together: a amily support

service

P Community Living: an

independent living project

P Glyncoch Youth Time Banking

Project: a youth time banking

project (Focus Box 1)

P Childrens Say: a participation

project

P Young Reporters: a projectproviding opportunities to young

people to inuence policy and

practice

These projects all use the principles o

co-production to dierent degrees, with

some projects showing strengths in

particular areas.

P The ramework has been set up to

apply equally to how an individual

proessional works, how a service

or project works and the way an

organisation works as a whole. Our

research ound this to be a useul

distinction because barriers to and

enablers o co-production can exist

at all three levels, which can impact

how you make sense o what isworking well and what needs to

improve.

P Sel-assessment indicators o

co-production are listed on the

let-hand side o the ramework.

They correspond to the our key

principles o a co-production

approach.

P An individual, project or service

needs to score 79 (excellent)

against all criteria to be confdent

that it is co-producing with children

and young people.

P The ramework should take

approximately 15 minutes tocomplete.

P We recommend perormance is

sel-assessed every six months

to prove and improve service

developments. This will enable

you to track progress and monitor

any unintended consequences o

changes to service inrastructure,

design or personnel that might

adversely impact the capacity or

children and young people to co-

produce the service. The ramework

can be used as a conversation

guide with children and young

people to understand how they

experience your work.

A guide to co-producing childrens services6



Steps to completing theramework

1. Identiying your score

For each indicator o co-production

consider where you are on the

scale rom 1 to 9 and circle the

number corresponding to your

score, your project and your

organisation.

You can use the descriptions

as a guide to what a score o 3

or a score o 7 might look like in

practice. For each gradient basic,

getting there and excellent we

have described how children and

young people should be engaging

with the service. Underneath, we

have also provided examples rom

some o the childrens services

that we were in contact with while

developing the ramework.

2. Justiying your score

For each score that you give,

provide a practical example based

on activities within your service.

From our research, we learnt that

examples help proessionals to

identiy an accurate score. Try to

avoid generic examples. I you

cannot think o a practical examplethat refects the score you have

identied, then we recommend

reassessing.

3. Refecting on your score

Depending on how well you score,

you may want to think about what

you can do to improve or next time.Alternatively, you may wish to share

your success so other services can

learn rom your good practice.

4. Proving and improving the

ramework

Each time you use the ramework,

there is scope or adapting it or

applying it to suit your service

setting. Some examples o how you

might go about this include:

P Adapting the scale to include

examples rom your own

service setting that are more

suitable or applicable. This

way, all proessionals using the

ramework across your project

or organisation will be able to

sel-assess based on practical

examples that are recognisable

to them.

P Asking children and young

people who are engaged in

the service to complete the

ramework. This can provide a

check or your own assessmentas well as opportunities or

open, yet ocused discussions

on how things can be improved.

P Applying the ramework to

your recruitment process.

Our research identied that

the values and personal

characteristics o sta werecritical to making co-production

work in practice. You could

ask potential sta members to

refect on times when they have

demonstrated the our principles

o a co-production approach in

their own work.



Table 1: Applying the principles o co-production in practice: some examples

Valuing children and

young people as assets

Recognising hobbies and interests

Encouraging childrens voice

Engaging childrens assets

Celebrating children and young

peoples contributionExternal, treat-based rewards

Internal, personal development

rewards

Reciprocal working Enable sel-organisation

Provide a culture o mutuality and

give and take

Foster a sense o shared

responsibility

Growing social networks Support children to support one

another

Bring children into contact with the

wider community



The Childrens Sayproject acilitates this is me planning days which invite children and

young people to share this is what I like, this is what I like to do and this is an important

issue or me.

Caring Togetheruses creative methodologies to enable young people to make decisions:

we make a rocket and they decide what activities to put on the stars and you can prioritisethe ones that they would most like to do by creating a continuum with most popular activities

at the top.

Young Reporters is in the process o recruiting new participants and the existing young

people are involved in all aspects o the process, organising events, producing induction

packs, everything rom the word go. This recognises the collective capacity o all the children

and young people involved.

In Glyncoch Youth Time Banking Project, children are encouraged to spend time thinking

about the positive things and the needs within the wider community and then they are

encouraged to nd their own existing talents and experience to nd solutions to problems.This has led to a number o projects including peer learning (e.g., sexual health sessions)

and environmental work.

Examples rom across the projects included vouchers, time credits used to go on trips

(like ice-skating or trips to the beach), or to access activities or community events, and

recognition o childrens work in the press.

Examples rom across the projects included certicates, child-riendly reports describing

their work, and copies o photographs o events, conerences and projects.

Learning to Leadallows children to sel-elect onto teams o children and young people, who

then work together to identiy priorities and turn plans into action.

In projects like Learning to Leadand Childrens Say, children are given designated oce

space to run their projects.

In projects like Childrens Sayand Learning to Lead, children have responsibility or running,

evaluating and directing the project. In Childrens Saythey delegate responsibilities to sta.

Learning to Leadinvites children and young people to be directors on its Board.

Projects like Childrens Say,Young Reporters, Caring Together, and Glyncoch Youth TimeBanking Projectoperated inormal and ormal mentoring schemes between older and

younger children.

Projects like Learning to Leadand Glyncoch Youth Time Banking Projectencourage children

to work together in teams to pool collective resources and assets and negotiate relationships

with one another.

Learning to Leadand Glyncoch Youth Time Banking Projectactively encouraged the

integration o childrens work into the local community. For example, with the time banking

project, children are encouraged to give their time to events and activities being organised

by other community groups. The same project uses learn something new nights to bringyounger and older generations together to share skills.



How to apply the principles

o co-production to your

service

Our research ound some really

interesting examples o projects

applying the principles o co-production in practice-based settings.

We have highlighted some o these

in Table 1 to provide you with ideas.

We have more examples or Valuing

children and young people as assets

and Celebrating children and young

peoples contribution than we do or

Reciprocal working and Growing

social networks, which refected how

active the projects we spoke to were

across the various principles o co-

production.

We encourage projects interested in

applying a co-production approach to

service delivery to link up and share

best practice. In the overall project

report we have called or government

to establish a Childrens Services

in the twenty-rst century learning

network to bring young people and

proessionals together to share ideas

and celebrate achievements.

Endnotes

1 For example, statements related to

service-user engagement can be

ound within education policy in

DES (2005) Schools White Paper

(London: DES). Available athttp://publications.dcs.gov.uk/

deault.aspx?PageFunction=product

details&PageMode=publications&Pr

oductId=Cm%25206677

[3 August 2009].

2 Action or Childrens Participation

Strategy aims or children and

young people to become involved

in initiatives across all levels and

departments in the organisation.

For example, it includes inormation

to help sta involve children and

young people in recruitment and

selection. Action or Children (2008)

The right choice: Involving children

and young people in recruitment

and selection (London: Action or

Children).

3 Stephens L, Ryan-Collins J, Boyle D

(2008) Co-production: A manifesto

for growing the core economy

(London: ne).


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Other reports related to this project include:

P Full project report:

p Backing the Future: why investing in children is good for us all

P Practical how-to documents:

p A guide to measuring childrens well-being

p A guide to commissioning childrens services for better outcomes

P SROI Assessment Reports or three Action or Children services:

p The economic and social return of Action for Childrens East

Dunbartonshire Family Servicep The economic and social return of Action for Childrens Family Intervention

Team / 5+ Project, Caerphilly

p The economic and social return of Action for Childrens Wheatley Sure

Start Childrens Centre, Doncaster

P Report on the citizens juries, including inormation on the process and

conclusions:

p How can government act to increase the well-being and happiness of

children and young people in the UK? A report on two citizens juries

All available at www.neweconomics.org and www.actionorchildren.org.uk


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ne (new economics oundation)

3 Jonathan Street

London SE11 5NH

t: 020 7820 6300

e: [email protected]

w: www.neweconomics.org

Written by: Jody Aked and Lucie Stephens

Further contributions rom: Nicola Steuer and Becky Booth

Special thanks to: the childrens services we interviewed as part o this

project: Caring Together, Lincolnshire; Childrens Say, Gateshead; Community

Living, Leeds; Learning to Lead, Somerset; Glyncoch Youth Time Banking

Project, Pontypridd; Young Reporters, Gloucester.

Edited by: Mary Murphy

Design by: the Argument by Design www.tabd.co.uk

Registered charity number 1055254

2009 ne (the new economics oundation)

ISBN 978 1 904882 58 9

Documents

Backing the Future Coproduction