Co-production  means working together to do something. It is about people with different views and ideas coming together to make things better for everyone.  In the Recovery College we take a co-production approach, meaning people with personal experience, including people overcoming distress and supporters (family members and friends) work in respectful partnerships with professionals to co-design, co-deliver and co-evaluate all aspects of the college.

Six principles of co-production

1. A co-operative learning approach: The Recovery College values all experience, both personal and professional equally in the exchange of knowledge and ideas. This requires the expectation on those with professional experience to move away from being ‘fixers,’ to becoming ‘facilitators.’
2. A strengths-based approach: We encourage people to develop their inherent skills, knowledge and aspirations, actively supporting them to put these to use individually, in the college and out into the community.
3. Collaborative partnership working: Ensuring people with lived experience are seen not as passive recipients but as equally respected partners in co-designing and co-delivering all aspects of the college.
4. Power sharing: Co-production involves all participants to actively share power and responsibility; this will be new for many people and requires a safe space to work through the any tensions that may arise, moving beyond established comfort zones.
5. A move from clinical roles:. Co-production moves participants beyond service user, carer and professional roles, to being people who mutually respect one another’s expertise, knowledge and empathy.
6. Taking risks together: Through processes that encourage positive and constructive collaboration between participants, learning from any challenges that arise to growing as a group along the way.

1. Recovery outcomes are personal and unique for each student and go beyond an exclusive health focus to include an emphasis on gaining control, social inclusion and quality of life.
2. The college empowers students to recognise that each individual is the central driver in their own recovery.
3. Providing real choice, the Recovery College ensures students have access to real decision making. Helping to inform all aspects of the college.
4. The Recovery College promotes equal citizenship and human rights, embracing difference and diversity to ensure all stakeholders communicate and work with each other in ways that are mutually respectful and inclusive.

1. Partnership working and strong supportive networks are crucial for the college, our students and everyone involved, as we work collectively towards a culture of recovery in the community.
2. The Recovery College will work to support the integration of students into the social, cultural, educational and working life of their community.
3. Recognising that the work of Recovery does not solely happen in the college, we strive to inform a more inclusive, respectful and recovery conscious community.

1. Recovery College students choose their own courses to gain new understandings and explore the potential of recovery in a way that suits them. The Recovery College is not a place of clinical treatment or therapy.
2. Our students are autonomous and self-directed, free to determine their level of participation. Students learn most effectively when they have a strong inner motivation to develop a new skills or understanding.
3. The Recovery College provides friendly & non-judgmental spaces for students, to come together from different perspectives and learn from one another, fostering a climate of mutual respect and a sense of real sense of connection.