Lucy Alexander, our Business Development Manager, reflects on her time with our co-trainers for this #CoProductionWeek
It’s Co-Production Week! With co-production being one of our core values at Beyond Words, I wanted to write a little about my evening at the end of June at City Lit’s Centre for Learning Disabilities Education Celebration Evening.
Beyond Words were celebrating another successful year of Book Club training and more specifically another successful year of working with the wonderful City Lit students, our co-trainers. These fantastic students help us train Book Club facilitators by demonstrating how Book Clubs work, and answering questions.
The celebration evening was a showcase for the full range of the students’ talents and interests – and also a showcase for the wonderful results of true co-production.
Co-production is at the centre of the ethos of the Centre for Learning Disabilities Education just as it is for Beyond Words. Not long ago, our co-trainers and Book Club experts joined us to launch our latest title – Getting Help with Gas. They led the audience participation in an open book reading which gave our guests a real feeling for the power of the books. Later, in training sessions, this title opened up conversations about personal experiences of carbon monoxide leaks and the dramatic consequences.
We run the training sessions to show others who come from all kinds of settings how a Book Club runs. While they are learning what a Book Club looks and feels like, I am learning about my co-trainer colleagues. As we read our stories we share experiences; of hospital visits, having an MRI (you get to listen to music but you have to lie still), how their doctors treat them (with kindness), the way their volunteering work makes them feel (proud) and what makes them laugh or blush.
Reflecting on the Celebration Evening during Co-Production Week brings an extra glow to the memory. All the performances were co-created with the students. It really is inspiring to see the breadth of ideas and feelings that everyone involved in the showcase was able to express through their dancing, singing and music making.