Supported Housing blog series! 🏡
These blogs are written by people who’ve experienced supported housing, offering real insight into how services can be shaped for the better. It’s about celebrating good practice, learning from lived experience, and showing that when residents are given a genuine voice, everyone benefits. They’re all members of our National Expert Influencing Forum💜
If It’s Done Right, It Changes Everything
When co-production’s done properly, it changes everything, for residents, for staff, for the whole organisation. I’ve seen it, and I’ve lived it.
To me, co-production isn’t just asking someone a couple of questions and ticking a box. It’s meaningful, purposeful involvement. It’s about giving people like me, people who’ve lived in supported accommodation, a real say in how things are run.
I’ve been really lucky. The organisation I was with had a proper co-production setup. I got involved in lots of opportunities – feedback sessions, recruitment panels, and even this amazing project where a group of us residents formed an incident panel. We said we wanted to influence how incidents were handled, and to the organisation’s credit, they listened. I co-chair the panel now, and our feedback has actually shaped policy.
It wasn’t just about the service getting better, it helped me, too. I learned how to chair meetings, how to communicate more confidently, how to work with staff on equal footing. It has built my confidence in a massive way. I stopped thinking “I can’t” and started thinking “I already have.”
I also helped recruit staff, which was powerful. Potential new workers would ask us questions about the service: what it was really like, who they’d be working with. That gave them a proper feel for the job, and it gave me a voice in shaping who supported us. I remember thinking, “I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of poor support – I can help make sure the other people in the service and future residents get better support.”
When co-production is done well, it becomes part of the culture. People at every level, from staff to board members, know who you are and value what you bring. You’re not just someone receiving support. You’re someone shaping it.
But that only happens when you give it space to grow. You can’t force it or fake it. It needs to be thought through, properly resourced, and given time. Like watering a plant, you feed it and let it take its shape.
And when you do that? It works. Everyone benefits. And it shows people like me that we’re not just recipients – we’re leaders too.
