How co-production underpins the Gloucestershire Arts on Prescription consortia
Hi I am Lucy Garrett and I manage the lead consortia partner Art Shape. I wanted to just briefly talk about how the Gloucestershire Co-production consortia model works.
Gloucestershire Arts on Prescription Consortia has 5 arts and health members. This group of organisations have worked for many years with their participants and have a solid knowledge of what works best for different people. There is a breadth of art forms within the arts partners and countywide coverage.
Each partner brings specific expertise in certain areas.
Art Shape – Cross arts, countywide, all ages – working with people (children and adults) facing disabling barriers (physical/learning disability, mental health issues, problems associated with aging, socio economic etc.) to help access to the arts and combat exclusion.
Mindsong – working with people with dementia and COPD through music therapy. Countywide.
The Music Works – work with children and young people with disabling barriers through music. One to one delivery, small and large groups, improving lives and mental health through music.
Artspace – working with all ages, Forest of Dean, those facing disabling barriers, cross arts with a specialism in circus.
Artlift – Arts on prescription drawing on a range of disciplines and artforms (such as illustration, printmaking, film, photography, creative writing), with specialisms in mental health, chronic pain and cancer. Countywide
This diversity allows for a diverse response to need.
So why did we want to work as a consortia?
In a sector where we could be directly competing against each other for funding, we need to consider the implications of collaborative consortia working.
Why should competitive organisations collaborate and what are the implications of collaboration?
Any consortia or coproduction working necessitates a balancing act between individual organisation and consortia/provider priorities. It should be based upon mutual trust, common purposes and identity, and clarity of what the members/stakeholders want to achieve.
Collaboration may not always be easy or comfortable, however, to be genuine, it requires the courage to engage in compromise, agree values and a willingness to accept a wider responsibility.
Coproduction and Consortia working both require navigation and negotiation with partners.
Employing their skills and expertise to identify potential obstacles and keys to success.
The benefits of this way of working are numerous, they allow for interconnection between service delivery and quality improvement built upon partner’s expertise.
Other benefits for AoP consortia and coproduction are:
Mutual support and opportunities to bounce ideas off a critical and supportive group of colleagues whether in the form of practical help, or advice on strategy.
There are opportunities for sharing and designing of best practice & sector support. For example: using reflective practice, employing commonality and harmonisation, R&D, monitoring and evaluation techniques, identification and prioritisation of outcomes, commitment to cultural change
It offers increased and concentrated impact, working together provides a strong force with greater influential weight, for example, making representations to national bodies, and a greater pulling power that should attract funders who want to concentrate their impact and deal with less applications to their funds!
It also enable retention of the diversity of provision without fragmenting the individual providers expertise i.e. music/arts/education
The absolute key to the successful consortia and co-production working is the trust the arts partners and commissioners have in each other alongside a mutual desire to impact positively on people’s lives and improve health conditions and their management. It is these shared values that enable partners to work effectively together and share knowledge with each other to increase the impact of their shared work.
Partners need to have equal equity in the design and spread of the delivery and the partnership allows for innovation in delivery models, service interconnections as well as mutual support between organisations.
In particular this consortia works because all partners had previous experience of working together over many years and had managed to build the trust that this group is now built on.
In order for the consortia to function well there is also a need for strong central coordination and to ensure there’s enough capacity amongst partners to engage which is always a challenge in any partnership / consortia working, especially at the outset when infrastructure is developing / roles and responsibilities being clarified.
In addition the access the NHS CCG gave for our staff and practitioners to Health Coaching training helped to ensure the skills were held within the team to be able to work with participants to help them to manage their health conditions. It also demonstrated the commitment to co-production.
In the longer term there are other potential partners within Gloucestershire that could join the consortia and we aim for it to grow to encompass the needs within the county and this is something we are actively working towards.
It is also possible for a freelance artist to link into the consortia through one of the organisational partners if they have specific skills that will enhance the work of the consortia.