Co-production in action: Designing with the Ambient Guardians

What is co-production and involvement? 

In social care, co-production means that organisations work together with people who have lived experiences, which could be a learning disability or mental health need. This collaboration is in equal partnership, and helps professionals to design, deliver, review and evaluate services to ensure that the best care and support are provided to meet people’s needs.  

Why is it important at Ambient? 

At Ambient, we value involvement and co-production because the people we support are experts by experience and bring invaluable knowledge and ideas to our production processes. 

Comprehensive feedback from them ensures that our services are the very best they can be, and that we are delivering them in the most effective way possible.  

The Ambient Guardians and Adventurers 

The Ambient Guardians are Ambient’s award-winning Involvement & Co-Production group, and are a part of our Quality Team. They are all supported by Ambient, and work together with our staff to help audit and improve our services. Their input and ideas for innovation are invaluable to the development of Ambient, providing a perspective that can only come with lived experience.

NCF conference  

Two of the Guardians had the fantastic opportunity to attend a National Care Forum panel last year to talk about their experiences of involvement and co-production. Jason and Frances spoke to 200 senior delegates about why it is important to put real people and real experiences at the heart of service planning. 

Frances says:  ‘We went to London to be on the NCF conference panel, and although it was a little bit scary it was really worth it.’ 

The team took to the stage despite their nerves, and explained to the audience how co-production allows the people we support to be engaged from the start in decision making, designing, creating or planning and they are an intrinsic part of forming and carrying out ideas.  

The origin story of the Guardians’ logo exemplifies this partnership, co-produced with Ambient staff. The entire process from beginning to end was lead by the Guardians. 

Emma, an Ambient Guardian, says about the idea behind their design:  

‘We wanted to include wings to represent being a ‘guardian’ to others and looking out for people.’   

Joanne Turberville, Ambient’s Involvement Lead says: 

‘The Guardians are the heart in the middle of the design, which is them making sure that people get the right support and the right care. It’s all about love and empathy. It’s a colourful design to reflect the unique and diverse nature of the people we support.’ 

Ambient also has an ‘Adventurers’ group, which is a group of people we support who take action when something arises from a Guardians Quality meeting and needs to be reviewed, evaluated, created, improved or designed with both experts by experience & professionals. 

The initial logo idea was designed by Phil, a member of the group, who says this: 

‘We are Adventurers as we work together to find new ways to sort things out & achieve new goals. The ‘A’ represents a mountain and us making steps towards change.’ 

It was then brought to life by professional designers, as with the Guardians logo, and is the perfect example and visual symbol of co-production in action. 

To learn more about Involvement and Co-production at Ambient, watch the video below: