Date published: July 2, 2026
Blog: Where to begin with co-production
As part of Co-production Week, we’re reflecting on what meaningful co-production looks like in practice. In this blog, Sophie Hargreaves, Senior Analyst at Shared Lives Plus, shares how we stepped back to think about the culture we want to create when working with experts by experience.
She also introduces the practical framework we developed to guide our thinking, centred around three simple questions that help shape the way we work together.
Where to begin
There are a lot of conversations around co-production in social care. At times it can be treated as something that’s been achieved. At others, it can be seen as too expensive or too complex.
Co-production – or to put it simply, working with people in your service – shouldn’t be complex. It also isn’t something that can be ‘ticked off’ and marked as complete.
At its core, it is about creating trusting relationships, much like social care itself. This goes beyond simply implementing processes. It’s about building a culture and approach that creates trust in an authentic way.
Recently at Shared Lives Plus, we went back to the beginning of how we work with experts by experience across social care, to ask:
- How do we want to feel when we work together?
- What do we need to remember?
- What do we need to do to make this happen?
These questions form the basis of the framework below, which we continue to use to guide our work together.
Building a framework to explore these questions collectively was a process in itself. But it was a process designed to improve our overall culture and approach, helping us work together in a trusting and equal way.
Culture, of course, isn’t something you cultivate overnight. It develops over time. There will also be times when your approach is challenged or when processes don’t work as intended. They are all connected. However, without first exploring your service’s purpose for working in co-production, your processes are unlikely to create real value.
The framework we have developed isn’t something we consider to be an endpoint. Instead, it’s something that needs continuous revision and adaptation as we continue to grow and develop as an organisation.
As with all work in social care, we work with people. Working with people means recognising unique identities and experiences, so our way of working should reflect this too. We want a culture that is person-centred, much like Shared Lives.
In a session we delivered during Co-production Week with two of our ambassadors, Hope and Catherine – available to members in our catch-up hub – we discussed the difference between experiencing co-production when it isn’t embedded in an organisation’s culture and when it is. We also explored the importance of sharing power when working together.
When co-production goes wrong, it can damage trust between services and the people they support. But trust is the key part of co-production, and it’s the part we should prioritise.
Without a culture of trust, how do you build processes?
Without an approach that shares power in decision making, where do your processes begin?
For schemes, not just this week but every week going forward, we encourage you to think about the culture you want to create around co-production, and the approach you’ll take to get there.
This will help to create a strong foundation for your processes. But it’s also, worth remembering this isn’t a straight line. Keep moving back and forth. Keep building relationships and trust with the people supported by your scheme. That’s how we create a meaningful and authentic way of working together.
