Engagement can be both formal exercise and an everyday activity. It can be a specific exercise to help understand and improve a service. But it can be part of the day to day work of teachers and support workers, and parent carers.
We should try to create an environment where co-production of services is the normal way of working, whether formal or everyday.
The workshop facilitator's job is to make bring the ideas and the resources needed to get the best out of the people taking part. Using open questions and engaging resources will help this.
The participants may be
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children and young people
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parent carers
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support staff
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teachers, SENCOs, or specialist professionals
Sometimes it's useful to get "everyone in a room together". Sometimes it's better to have separate workshops. Some children and young people may need their support workers with them.
Especially in formal engagement activities we need to support children and young people, and parent carers. But in everyday activities we also need to support teachers and professionals to be able to engage at a wider service or strategic level.
Some things to think about
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making sure that children and young people, and parent carers can attend engagement activites
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tailoring activities to your specific audience
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using simple frameworks that encourage participation and feedback
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being creative
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being open
Once you have the data from the engagement workshop or survey, you'll need to interpret it. This shouln't be done in isolation. Again, work with the same groups as in the workshop. You may find it helpful to ask the Youth SEND representatives or Parent Carer Forum to help with this.
This is what the whole process is about. Go back to the purpose of the engagement to see
Remember that co-production is about making those decisions together with children and young people, and their parent carers.
Giving feedback on the whole process
You might feedback the survey results or workshop findings, as well as the decisions made.
