Co-production guide: meetings and events

This guide aims to support people working in Adult Social Care who are arranging meetings, conferences and other events with people with lived experience of care and support.

Arranging the event

• When you are planning to arrange a one-off meeting, a series of meetings or a big event like a conference, and you’d like people with lived experience of care and support to be involved, you must include them in plans from the beginning.

• Agree together the best dates and times to meet.

• Agree the best format for meetings with people. Ideally have a ‘hybrid’ meeting where people can join in person or online.

• Check any access requirements to make sure people can fully participate and make any necessary reasonable adjustments and/or health and safety arrangements. Refer to the person’s Working with me information or support them to complete the document if they haven’t already done so.

• If you are inviting people to an online meeting, make sure you include the date and time in the body of the email, along with the MS Teams link. Offer to have a ‘test’ meeting with people first, if they are not familiar with using MS Teams.

• If you will be meeting in person, make sure people know how to get to the venue, where to meet and who will meet them. Arrange for people to arrive with enough time before the event to get comfortable – ideally at least 15 minutes for a regular meeting and 30 minutes for a large event.

• Arrange to meet in a room that is big enough for everyone to be comfortable in. Try to get a ground floor meeting room for easy access.

• Check if people would need assistance to get out of the building in an emergency. Explain what would happen if there is an emergency alarm. If someone requires support, make sure they have a designated person who can stay with them in an emergency and support them to get to a refuge area.

• In Civic the refuge areas are in the corner stairwells on each floor, near the council chamber and above Facilities Management. There is a green button in the refuge area. You would need to press this to speak to someone in the Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC). The ARC worker will stay in contact with you. They will provide reassurance and assistance to use the fire evacuation lift and leave the building if necessary.

• Arrange transport for people to get to and from the meeting if they need it.

• Agree how people will be rewarded for their time and expenses, and make sure people know how much they will be paid if that’s how they choose to be rewarded. Follow the Recognition and reward for co-production staff guidance.

• Make sure information like agendas or papers for the meeting are shared at least a week in advance, and in an accessible format for people.

At the meeting

• Check people are comfortable in the room.

• Always make sure everyone is introduced to each other in meetings.

• Make sure people know where the toilets and fire exits are, whether there are any planned fire drills, and what to do if there is an emergency.

• Always provide hot and cold drinks, and biscuits or other snacks. Provide food, or payment for lunch, if you are meeting for a full day, or over the middle of the day. For large events like conferences, explore options like pre-ordering to avoid huge queues, and ensure dietary requirements are met.

• In larger events, make sure people with lived experience are supported, for example to find or get into breakout rooms, or to get food or drinks.

• Make sure you have people’s Working with me information to hand so you have easy access to emergency contact information and are clear about how best to support people.

• Ask people to put phones on silent or turn them off.

• Ask people to put cameras on, unless there is a good reason for them to be turned off.

• Make sure people only use laptops for work related to the meeting, like recording actions or sharing presentations.

• In large events make sure people use microphones provided so everyone can hear.

• Before you get into detailed conversations, first agree how you will all work together, including things like if and when you’ll have a break.

After the meeting

• When the meeting finishes, check in with people to see how they felt the meeting went.

• If there’s not enough time to properly address any issues or concerns, arrange a separate time to meet people as soon as possible.

• Check people can get home safely. If you have booked taxis for people, make sure the taxis arrive.

• Arrange for people to be paid promptly.

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