Boingboing recommended reading…
The dark side of coproduction: do the costs outweigh the benefits for health research? (Oliver, Kothari & Mays, 2019)
Angie’s been reading this fascinating article putting the boot in a bit for co-productive research in a really organised and systematic way. Great timing, as she has just returned from inflicting a European mental health research conference on some of Blackpool’s young people from the Resilience Revolution HQ. There was some great stuff at the conference, which you can read about on our blog. However, a key downside was that most of the keynotes were given by middle aged, white, seemingly able-bodied male academics which frankly was embarrassing in this day and age. Certainly not ideal role modelling for the youth. Radical, thoughtful co-productive approaches to these chaps’ learned work could surely have given them serious meaning and joy as well as helped the world that little bit more. Angie isn’t going to send the Dark Side of Coproduction article to the chaps who did the keynotes, as she feels they need serious encouragement to do things differently and would take any excuse not to. However, between us and you the reader, we feel the painful truths of some of this truly interesting article.
Undoubtedly causing herself to be categorised as a masochist by the article writers in their next output, Angie is never more mindful of just how important working co-productively actually is. She’s feeling this keenly having witnessed the benefits for countless conference participants of Blackpool’s youth taking part, including the young people themselves. She has committed herself to this now forever, even if it means she can never again have a glass of wine on a pavement cafĂ© post-conference because of the Boingboing no alcohol policy…. Even if it means that at the age of 55 poor podgy Ang sometimes has to wear a tee shirt that is far better suited to a 15 year old. She sometimes has to wear one in an effort to portray a collective identity and as an aide to not losing each other in foreign cities. To make co-production work, it’s all about the management of effective detail, a concept that we developed in our first Resilient Therapy book in relation to adults supporting kids facing incredible challenges. So check out our ‘Academic Conference Survival Guide‘ for people who aren’t used to going to them, which Blackpool young people, Laura, Sam and Rosie have been busy working on. Also, have a read of this article which explores the learning following a trip young people and adults went on to present their research in Cardiff. We’ve also made a short film of it which you can watch when you have your popcorn at the ready…
