Our 30-Year Co-production Journey

[Photo description: Our Board of Trustees and Advisory Group working together around the same table in our Leatherhead office on how to embed Co-Production further into our organisation]

For Co-production Week, we look back on our 30-year journey towards Co-production celebrating all our key milestones and where we’re at today! 

From when Mary Frances Trust was established in 1994 to today, Co-production has been at the heart of everything that we do. It may not have been under this title, but the ethos was the same: services work best when they are designed together with the people that use them.

Originally, MFT had an organic way of co-producing with their clubhouse model whereby clients were involved in day-to-day communications and decisions, contributing to the direction of the Charity. In recent years, due to the growth and evolution of our services and delivery, we have established an Advisory Group of people with lived experience of mental health services and continued to embed Co-production within our culture.

Our Advisory Group ensures that we are listening to the people that use our services, and their input is highly valued. We have been working on continuously improving Advisory Group involvement at every level of our organisation, and we have made some tremendous progress. From strategic level involvement such as new communication links with our Trustees [see photo], attending commissioning meetings, inputting into our new strategy to operational level involvement such as sitting on interview panels, supporting with staff induction, designing our new Welcome Pack for new clients, and contributing to new courses and activities.

We are also making headway with creating a culture of Co-production, where the values are carried by all of our staff, and the organisation is committed to evaluating and improving the way we do Co-production. Our staff are recognising when there are opportunities for people with lived experience to be involved in projects, and we are making progress with people being involved from the beginning, rather than feedback at the end. Recently our Community Connections team was able to co-produce one of our new courses “Let’s Talk” with a client, who enjoyed the process so much, they have now joined our Advisory Group. This was such a positive experience for everybody involved, and we now have another valued member to support and steer Mary Frances Trust – amazing!

Co-production is also a key part of our new strategy which was co-produced with staff, Advisory Group members, Management Board and Trustees, so it is only fitting that Co-production emerged as a priority for everyone!

Surrey Mental Health Co-Production Network

MFT set up the Surrey Mental Health Co-Production Network in 2022 which has grown from strength to strength and brings professionals across the statutory sector and the voluntary sector together to share practices in co-production. The group has successfully expanded to 12 members, meeting monthly to explore successes and challenges in co-production. The group is presently working on an agreed definition for Co-Production across Surrey.

Our biggest success this year, by far, was how the network worked together to organise their first Lived Experience Conference held at Dorking Halls on 31 January 2024. Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (SABP) coordinated the day inviting people with Lived Experience and professionals working in the field of mental health to attend. Over 100 people attended with over 70 attendees having lived experience of mental health issues. There were external speakers and group work, and our Advisory Group Member Eleanor was one of the key speakers (see photo below).

Photo of Eleanor, MFT Advisory Group Member speaking at The Lived Experience Conference in Dorking Halls.

The feedback was incredible, with people being happy to meet others face-to-face again. The network is starting preliminary planning for the next one in 2025. MFT and the Independent Mental Health Network (IMHN) are planning on taking on the overall coordination role.

First Ever Advisory Group Away Day

2024 was really a year of firsts as our Co-Production team organised the first Advisory Group’s Away Day at Bourne Hall in October 2023. The programme included an external speaker from the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and our CEO, Patrick Wolter (see photo below), came along to meet the Advisory Group and explore how to further embed Co-Production at MFT.

Photo of our CEO, Patrick Wolter, speaking at our Advisory Group Away Day

The Advisory Group enjoyed being together face-to-face and having a voice and their ideas included. Members were so enthusiastic and motivated and had so many great ideas and were treated to a lovely lunch and some fun activities. From this, we were able to draw a plan to work towards over the coming two years for Co-Production.

Photo of our Advisory Group members and our Co-Production team at our Advisory Group Away Day

Plans for the future

We have come a long way in making Co-production a paramount practice that we use, however there is always room for evaluation and improvement – it wouldn’t be Co-production without it!

Moving forward, we want to focus on continuing to strengthen the Advisory Group’s presence and influence in the organisation by being involved in the beginning of decision making processes and projects, supporting staff to embrace Co-production with education, training and stronger communication links with the Advisory Group. We also want to continue to build networks with other lived experience groups in the borough to learn and share good practice.

Without Co-production and people using their experience to help develop services, we would be missing so many opportunities to create the right type of support and service that meet the needs of the community. Often, this is the driving force behind our dedicated Advisory Group volunteers – they want to help MFT to provide the right type of support in the right way for the people that need to access it.

If you’ve enjoyed hearing about the Co-production journey at MFT, make sure you read Advisory Group member Eleanor’s personal experience of Co-production.

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