Co-creation was the keyword of the 32nd edition of the European Social Services Conference. With almost 700 delegates from 37 countries worldwide, the ESSC is a great opportunity to take stock of how social services are performing across countries, identify innovative practices and connect with other colleagues for transnational joint work.
But what is co-creation in social services? Co-creation is an approach where people who use services, service providers, and public authorities collaborate to design, deliver, and evaluate social services.
Through the many plenary sessions, workshops and thematic discussions, I came up with eight reasons as to why co-creation is beneficial in social services.
1. Empowerment and Inclusion
Co-creation empowers people using social services by involving them directly in the decision-making process. This fosters a sense of ownership and ensures that their voices are heard, promoting inclusion and reducing potential power imbalances. At a plenary presentation on the role of the community, Cormac Russel, Founder of Nurture Development, emphasised that leaders needed to reach out to people using their services when developing social support services, as this was the first step towards ensuring effective solutions.
2. Improved Relevance and Effectiveness
Service users have first-hand experience with the challenges they face. Their input helps ensure that services are relevant to their actual needs and circumstances, leading to more effective and targeted solutions. Being an equal part of social services planning, delivery and evaluation is a key step to ensure social services become better at supporting the people who use them.
3. Innovation and Creativity
Collaborative efforts bring diverse perspectives and expertise together, fostering innovation and creative problem-solving. This can lead to new approaches and solutions that might not emerge in traditional top-down service design. At a workforce session, innovator Siobhan Mclean underlined that a significant shift is required to move from doing it for individuals to doing it with them, and for them to do it by themselves. This involves the need to rethink our approach to workforce dynamics within social services.
4. Enhanced Trust and Relationships
Co-creation helps build trust between the workforce and people using social services. By working together, relationships are strengthened, leading to better communication, cooperation, and mutual respect. Tine Roostgaard, professor at Roskilde University, highlighted that self-managed teams with strong co-creation components in home care had impacted positively care workers motivation and retention.
5. Responsive and Adaptive Services
Co-creating services with the professionals and people using social services allows those services to be more responsive to changing needs and circumstances. Continuous feedback from the professionals and people using services ensures that services are relevant, and they can adapt and evolve over time.
6. Cost-Effectiveness and Sustainability
By targeting resources more effectively, public social services increase the likelihood of services meeting needs, hence co-creation can lead to more cost-effective solutions. When people using services are involved in the design and delivery of services, they are more likely to be committed to their success, help identify potential issues early, saving time and money in the long run. This can lead to more sustainable outcomes as people using the services are actively involved in the process.
7. Ethical and Inclusive
Co-creation aligns with ethical principles, promoting participation, transparency, and accountability. At the conference we learnt about emerging focus groups to develop and test social robots assisting people to eat or coaches to provide digital tools to residents. It became clear to me that co-creation is critical when it comes to the development and implementation of emerging technologies to ensure they are responsive to the needs of the professionals and people using the services, empowering, and inclusive.
8. Policy and System Change
Co-creation can influence broader policy and systemic changes. The insights that we gained at the conference from multiple collaborative efforts across Europe and beyond can inform the policy decisions that will lead to improvements in the overall social services system.
In summary, co-creation in social services enhances the relevance, effectiveness, and sustainability of services by involving those who are directly impacted including the professionals and people using the services. Co-creation fosters curiosity and innovation, trust and collaboration, leading to social services that are more responsive, inclusive, and cost-effective. Ultimately, co-creation is about better outcomes for people using social services. By ensuring that services are user-centred and tailored to people’s real needs, there is a higher likelihood of achieving better results.
