In the second part of his series, the co-production lead Matt Kidd, from Creative Inclusions, discusses the panel’s involvement in staff recruitment, training and development.
“In the first round of recruitment, the co-production panel worked with the programme team to co-produce the interview process and questions to ensure they provided an opportunity to explore the values of applicants and the extent to which these were aligned to the principles of Housing First.
“People with lived experience sat on the vast majority of interview panels and shared decisions about who was selected.
“The feedback from the recruitment activities in which the co-production panel were involved was that this helped to uncover people’s values and personalities much more than traditional recruitment interviews do.
“For the second round of recruitment, the panel have produced a values-based exercise will act as the first stage of the revised recruitment process. Individuals will only go through to a full interview if they can demonstrate their values are aligned with Housing First principles.
“The lived experience panel has produced four questions which explore people’s values in relation to the Housing First principles and have produced clear guidance for what would feature in an answer which would lead them to be confident an individual had the right values and what would lead to them having concerns. We will be conducting this process virtually inline with Government guidance.
“People with lived experience of accessing homelessness services have co-designed co-production training and this will factor into the design and development of the Housing First peer programme.
“Following input into the theory behind effective participation, co-production staff and individuals with lived experience will work through some case studies together and decide what role participation, co-production and peer mentoring will play in people’s journey and at what points people would be most likely to benefit.
“People with lived experience involvement have co-facilitated the POPS (Principles of Operational Practice) workshops on the principle of choice and control. This has helped inform practice around the use of personal budgets.
"The panel are leading on the workshop on the principle ‘the service is based on people’s strengths, goals and aspirations’.
People with lived experience of accessing services have developed a Strengths based Approaches training package which has been rolled out to all GM Housing First staff.
This training provides first person accounts of the differences between receiving deficit-based services and participating in strengths based services. Feedback from staff was that this was some of the most impactful training they had ever engaged in.
“The coproduction panel and the programme team are working with Katy Rubin (The founder of Theatre of the Oppressed New York) to use interactive theatre to encourage legislators and decision makers to respond to the issues affecting people who are accessing Housing First and which impact on the success of the Housing First program (e.g. discrimination or misunderstanding towards Housing First tenants by landlords and neighbours; targeting by police; access to charities and community spaces).
Local audiences - made up of peers, Housing First workers, advocates and local charities and community groups will be invited to 1-2 public events, where they will improvise alternative responses to these systemic problems, onstage, and then submit ideas to decision makers.
To read the first part Matt's blog - click here