We believe that the voices of mental health service users and family carers should be at the heart of all mental health care service design, delivery, review and transformation. Coproduction is about valuing people and their lived experience, seeing this as a real asset in how we shape and design services. It is based on working together with professionals to understand the problems and to find shared solutions.
Co-production is people, carers and professionals working together as equal partners to: design, develop, commission, deliver and review services, information and support.
Suffolk County Council – A co-produced definition for Suffolk
We are currently supporting coproduction in the following areas:
1. #AVeryDifferentConversation – Mental Health Transformation
- Co-designing new services for people living with Eating Disorders
- New services for people living with Personality Disorders
- Community Mental Health Outcomes
- Crisis Care including Crisis Cafe’s for East & West Suffolk
- Dementia Care and Older People
2. Suicide Prevention and awareness
3. Our Suffolk User Forum Equally Well Pledge so that we can become a member of Equally Well UK, supporting our Healthy Together project for people living with Serious Mental Illness (SMI).
Contact us if you would like to find out more or would like to be involved by calling us on 01473 907087 or emailing us at hello@suffolkuserforum.co.uk.
Find out more about some of our coproduction projects below:
SUF Members Podcasts and Videos
The award-winning Stay Alive App, which SUF coproduced for Suffolk in 2017, has in the last few months of 2021 been used over 12,000 times. SUF has supported two SUF members during the pandemic to share their personal experiences of living with suicidal thoughts as videos and podcasts on You Tube, supporting Stay Alive and for suicide prevention.
LISTEN for suicide prevention
Using the LISTEN model for suicide prevention and mental health crisis care, we worked in coproduction with service users and those bereaved by suicide to promote a helpful guide to help people stay safe when living with thoughts of suicide and a step by step guide to help family, friends and people in our communities to reach out, LISTEN and connect for suicide prevention.
Coproducing a refresh for the Suffolk Suicide Prevention Strategy – Autumn 2020
In the Autumn of 2020, SUF bought together SUF community members who had spoken to us about suicide prevention. Meeting in small groups on Zoom and in one-to-one conversations we shared 142 experiences of living with suicidal thoughts.
Coproducing LISTEN, a system wide model for crisis care and suicide prevention
LISTEN was coproduced in 2013. It has evolved into one of the most powerful and successful coproduction projects in Suffolk. Endorsed by Skills for Care, by 2020 LISTEN has become embedded in Suffolk mental health services as the model for crisis care and mental health transformation, for which the new services commence in 2021. It is a coproduction project that has spanned seven years, and now has system wide recognition and value.
About coproduction
When planning our work for the Quality Improvement Programme for Men’s Mental Health in February 2020, we felt it was important to explain what coproduction is and some of the key issues when coproducing in mental health, to ensure that people with lived experience can contribute at the level they wish and know they are truly valued as an equal partner in the conversations.
