Co-Responsibility 1st, Co-Design 2nd, Co-Production 3rd?
The picture is my daughter; Madge, about 6 years ago. In my mind she represents Local Authorities attitudes to what the legislation identified about Parental Voice:
“Come on Madge, we are going this way now and you don’t have a choice”
When I first heard the term co-production it was in relation to Special Educational Needs and/or Disability (SEND). I don’t remember which service it was or from which document/policy I read or heard it referenced but it sparked a real interest that has grown and grown over the last three years.
After about 10 minutes of searching the term online, I came across: The Parable of the Blobs and Squares. It’s linked below. I was hooked and I have gone on to read a substantial amount about co-production. Truth is, the guiding principles, beautifully voiced by Brian Blessed, are as far as I really needed to research in order to build a model of co-production around my local SEND services(the process) and Barnsley SEND families (the context).
On a personal level, I found the true meaning of co-production really easy to understand. ‘Death by theory’ is often the safe zone that many people of limited talent rely on. Co-production like many other wonderful concepts is more about desire and bravery than theory and measurement. Stop weighing the pig and just bloody feed it…
The way I have interpreted co-production/co-responsibility/co-design into a model of creating true parental voice is nothing like the bastardised version I see in Local Authority documents/policies, antiquated parent ‘participation’ (que spit the dog) or tweets from executive leaders/ anyone who lists their number of years’ experience before anything else.
I would love to work with open minded people and initially explore the point that almost all other countries refer to co-production as co-responsibility. I know that in The SEND parent ‘participation’ world there has always been a willingness from parents to share responsibility but maybe our cultural obsession with production is what is stopping it from working?
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