Clare Vaughan

Clare Vaughan

Institutions: Clare works at the East End Women and Girls Centre and recently completed her PhD in homelessness.  

Role: I have a coordinator role with the local programs, effectively I’m responsible for devising delivery and managing all of the activities that we do.  It is mainly education and skills driven, however, there is a social and reducing social isolation element to our programs. As well as a  community development element, so an example of the type of things that we do on our courses is women's DIY and garment manufacturing to upscale local women skills, particularly in the East End of Newcastle in practical skills or help them in their day to day, reduce costs at home, teach them skills they might not otherwise have thought that they could have or develop, in a welcoming feminist environment. 

What does Coproduction mean to you?  

For the work I do within the community development context, I would say that it's trying to create as equal as possible way of developing anything. From project research and incorporating in the aims and objectives and the priorities of everybody who's taking part. Aiming to make sure that the end product, and that every stage along that process from initial inception of the thing down to the whatever the endpoint looks like, be that a Community education program or be that a piece of research, is as far as is suitable or possible done in a participatory way.  

How have you used this in your work?  

The most relevant way I use coproduction is being community focused and embedded in the community. Being embedded was something that I was most interested in doing and the type of work that I most enjoy and it is linked to my research interests and my research approach in the sense that my thesis is about women, gender based violence and homelessness. 

Within the charity the devising of programs and initiatives that are democratic and have come from the people that are going to use them, is something that is really important to me and to our organization, especially in local programs. 

What other methods did you use in your work? How did these fit with your interest in coproduction?  

It's so much easier to remember the ways it hasn't worked! And because obviously there's different scales to it, I think there’s different approaches I’ve taken at different times and for different projects.  The way I knew and became involved with this research with the young people is that I volunteered at this one charity for in total five years but three before I did the research, or I did my data collection. I was a volunteering, delivering workshops and sessions to them on a weekly basis on different things like photography and painting, but mainly it was centred around debate sessions with groups. 

During my undergrad when I did my dissertation on homelessness I'd seen a paper that used participatory photography methods and I was like “wow that's cool why did I just do boring semi structured interviews” and obviously not really understanding what else came with participatory research I did try and do participatory mapping. Which didn't work at all! I would basically plunk a map in front of somebody in an interview that I just met, normally a middle aged chronically homeless woman, I'd put these maps down with pen and basically ask can you identify where you go where you won't go. And it felt so flat every time, I think I did two before I was like I need to stop this because it's just confusing people. So that is an example of really bad sort of very light touch coproduction activity. Which didn't work and it wasn't coproduced it was just me asking someone to mark on a piece of paper and so that was probably my first proper experience of it. 

I still had this idea that I wanted to develop this photography element, because I thought that'd be a nice live form of data to have it might bring some new insights I was very optimistic about what it would do, and it did do those things, to a degree. 

Any examples of coproduction you’ve used? 

One of our volunteers who volunteered in the food bank is really interested in horticulture and gardening. She basically asked, can I help to develop the polytunnels and set up garden and so on, and so we worked with her to make that happen. And, I would say that's been coproduced because we've worked both with the charity and this woman, and now the other women who attend that group have also made a contribution to what they need and how they want it to look. I’d say that feels coproduced because it been a collaborative idea that came from the women but has been further supported by us.  

What challenges have you faced in using coproduction? 

I think co production is complicated, in a community based setting and in a research setting in the sense that you need to have those establish relationships before you're going to be able to do it properly. I think the idea that, a research team who weren't already really established within a certain environment or context could decide to do coproduction with the group of people that they don't know in a short space of time is not realistic, and then I think you almost need it to be coproduced initially with all the people involved.  

What do you wish you’d known before starting research that uses coproduction?  

I think to think about the ethos behind your work and think about what works and that’s important because the experience of seeing things fail when they're not working matters. When other people's priorities aren't considered, when they're not asked about it. There are lots of I guess you have volunteers that stuff or whatever, or even like statutory sounds is that don't work because they don't speak to the people they're meant to be targeting.  

It takes time, effort and compromise, I guess, to actually do it well, and sometimes it isn't feasible so there's a lot to consider. 

 

Did you find that a difficult thing to navigate them when you were doing your thesis, of being both invested as a researcher but also invested as someone involved in the charity, was there a clash that you were aware of? 

Hundred percent because it produced a lot of guilt, it made me become more aware about the good ways to do participatory research. The more I was talking to them I realised this isn't going to get them a stable housing it's not going to undo the childhood trauma and so that was something that was very emotionally difficult but actually really when I stepped away from it, I was like of it, it doesn't matter because there's like little activity that they'll pop in and do and then most likely forget about.  Really it is just a drop in the ocean, in the big scheme of things and that's, not to say you should therefore do whatever you want, you still need to be as ethical as possible with your research, but it’s also realizing that they don't mind participating!   

Any advice you would give to someone interested in using coproduction? 

Probably I would go and talk to people that have done it before instead of just reading books about it because you'll never you'll never get an honest depiction from most textbooks and articles. You'll never really get an honest representation of what it's like and like what can go wrong, and what the joys are! 

Sit down and think about why it is that you're wanting to do co production, is it because you've heard the term and you think “Oh ,I want to involve people”. But that on its own might not be enough and it might not be worth it for you, or what you can actually offer the other parties/participants. So really try and interrogate why you're doing this in the first place, have you decided because it a buzzword you’ve heard or do you think it really, really fits with your politics and your vision. And think about if its something you're going to enjoy spending your time doing? Some people they don't have the communicative skills for coproduction, which is fine! But then maybe coproduction isn’t the direction your research should take.  

That advice applies to the voluntary sector as well, look around, look at neighbouring organizations and see what their systems are, how they engage from an outward perspective and internally. 

It's not necessarily advice, but I think something to think about is how's that going to feel and that it might be really difficult, but it is so valuable when it's done well, when you can see somebody enjoying something that you've helped to facilitate, that is mutually beneficial it's an absolute joy.