We are privileged to be in a position where we can listen to and amplify the voices of the community.
Over the next three years, we want to further strengthen the way we do this work. We are doing this largely by increasing the diversity of voices we are hearing in the organisation by formally bringing co-production into our governance structure.
What is Co-production?
Co-production is an approach to working together in equal partnership and for equal benefit. It gives different people with lived experience the opportunity to work together to produce something that can benefit a larger group of people with similar needs. For us, this means involving people with lived experience of OCD at the heart of what we do. People who use services don’t often get the chance to influence their design and development – and we want this to change. By including co-production in our governance structure, we can work to ensure that we are delivering what the OCD Community needs!
Young People’s Co-production Panel
We are co-designing our Youth programme with young people who are affected by OCD and BDD as we strongly believe that working together will help the us to deliver the best support for our growing community of young people affected by OCD and related conditions.
Meet Mairéad
We spoke to Mairéad, one of our Young People’s Co-production Panellists, who told us a bit about what volunteering on the panel is like.
Hi Mairéad! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m 23 years old and a member of both the LGBTQIA+ and OCD communities. I’m currently finishing a masters in Creative Health at UCL. I have had OCD for most of my life, experienced (what feels like) all of the themes and I am currently in therapy.
What attracted you to the role of Young People’s Co-production Panellist?
I first heard that OCD Action were recruiting for a new Young People’s Co-production Panel towards the end of last year, and I immediately knew that I wanted to be involved. I have had close ties with OCD Action for a few years, initially volunteering in the Media and Comms department and more recently volunteering with the Helpline service. So volunteering with OCD Action isn’t new for me, and I feel pretty at home here! I have always been passionate about involving people with lived experience in the design and delivery of services and projects, so it felt like a brilliant opportunity for me to realise this!
What has been the highlight of volunteering on the panel so far?
In the first few months of volunteering with the panel, we put together a plan for recruiting new digital volunteers to build up the online community for young people affected by OCD and related conditions. It was really rewarding to see what we discussed start coming to fruition – and being involved in writing role descriptions and putting together application forms has been provided me with some really valuable experience.
What are you most looking forward to?
OCD Action will soon be applying for funding for the Youth Service, so we are currently doing a big piece of work to ensure that our voices are really centred in what the service will provide for young people in the future. I’m really excited by the prospect of our ideas being part of the service design! I am especially hopeful that the initiatives we have discussed will help our services become even more inclusive and will support younger teenagers – 14/15 is such a crucial age and I think we have a real opportunity to truly make a difference for this age group.