Co-producing this strategy

To ensure the revised Together Strategy reflects the voices of all stakeholders, we embedded co-production from the outset. A strategy review group, made up of staff and experts by experience, met monthly throughout the review. These meetings created a structured space to share lived experiences, generate insights, and shape the strategy together.

Involvement of our services

We distributed review tools across our directorates to gather feedback on how services approach involvement. This sparked valuable discussions, increased understanding of different involvement methods, and highlighted both barriers and enablers to participation. 

Key findings included:

• Involvement practices vary across directorates
• Staff need clearer guidance on co-production
• Some involvement still feels tokenistic
• Staff who work with experts by experience are generally supportive of involvement
• Understanding of the Together approach is limited in some areas.

Additionally, targeted engagement events were conducted both in inpatient wards and community settings to further capture feedback and ideas. These events provided valuable insights from staff and people who use our services, helping to identify challenges and best practices for effective involvement.

The following themes emerged:

• Co-production is valued most among involvement types
• Staff and service users want clearer role definitions (for example, expert by experience vs. peer support worker vs. volunteer)
• Communication needs to be more consistent to improve involvement
• Experts by experience sometimes feel their contributions are not respected, leading to frustration
• When valued, expert by experience input leads to meaningful change
• Experts by experience bring more than just lived experience-they contribute skills and knowledge
• There's a desire for greater representation of experts by experience at higher levels
• More collaboration with external organisations could improve the effectiveness of involvement
• Emotional demands of co-production in mental health call for additional support.

Learning disability partnership boards

We specifically targeted learning disability partnership boards to ensure that the voices of people with learning disabilities were fully and meaningfully represented in the review. 

Their feedback was crucial and highlighted the following:

• Ensure people's views are listened to and valued
• Create comfortable, inclusive team environments
• Use clear, jargon-free language
• Provide reasonable adjustments where needed
• Maintain a list of people with learning disabilities for involvement opportunities
• Acknowledge cultural stigma around discussing mental health
• Offer both online and face-to-face meeting options
• Support people before and during meetings
• Build trust to encourage open sharing
• Communicate outcomes and provide feedback to participants

Every contribution shaped the strategy and ensured it reflects real experiences. The strategy review group remained actively engaged throughout, reinforcing shared decision-making as a core value.

By prioritising inclusivity and co-production, we have developed a strategy that authentically represents the voices that helped shape it.