Engagement & Co-Production

The Co-production Network for Wales definition is as follows:

You can read more about co-production here 

Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services (PAVS) has renewed our membership of the Co-production Network for Wales for the year 2025-26. We have several Co-Production Champions within the organisation. The role of a co-production champion is to engage on the learning journey of co-production and citizen involvement, to fly the flag and advocate for co-production, to link in to the wider community of practice at the Co-production Network for Wales, and to support colleagues and share knowledge and resources inside your organisation.

Our Co-production Champions are Sophie Buckley, Ana Reis-Rogers, Steffan Lemke-Elms, and Kathryn Gibson.

Engagement & Co-production in Action

In 2024, Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services (PAVS) was awarded funding from the Shared Prosperity Fund via Pembrokeshire County Council for an Active Citizenship & Engagement programme which aimed to get more people of all ages actively involved in helping out in their communities – doing the small things that make a big difference. The Active Citizenship & Engagement (ACE) programme was made up of three elements which combined to offer an integrated package of support to communities, voluntary groups, and individuals who wanted to help others.

The Strengthening Communities programme successfully applied for Shared Prosperity Funding during this period to help PAVS and our partners step up our collective ambitions for Engagement and Co-productionin Pembrokeshire. Working closely with the Co-production Network for Wales, PAVS championed co-production in Pembrokeshire, establishing an Engagement & Co-production Practitioners Network, organising training and events, sharing learning, and building the skills and capacity of the Network which quickly grew to a membership of 80 practitioners across the sectors. 55 people received ‘Introduction to Co-production’ training from PAVS, delivered face to face in community venues, demonstrating a real commitment to a co-produced way of working. Here is some of the feedback we received:

• “Co-production doesn’t need to be complex. It’s having the opportunity to have good conversations & listening”.
• “Really appreciate discussing this material as an organisation with colleagues. This is the practice of delivering positive change together”.
• “Brilliant insight into how to actively co-produce, with an opportunity to put ideas into practice”.

The SPF funding also allowed us to engage a number of high quality consultants to help on specific topics, which we would not otherwise have had the chance to do, leaving a legacy of useful information and resources for the sector. This included engagement and co-production with the community in and around the development of community-led and person-centred approaches to care, support and wellbeing.  This involved finding out what matters to people, what assets they have in their community, what their needs are for current and future care & support, and presenting this in a format that can be used in future support and service planning by key stakeholders. In practice, this included working this year with St David’s and Crymych Town & Community Councils to develop their Community Wellbeing Plans, and work in north-east Pembrokeshire around a new service model for the Bro Preseli Day Centre. We also commissioned a piece of engagement work in and around the Fishguard area centred around the development of an Integrated Health & Wellbeing Hub. All 3 pieces of work, available here, have received excellent feedback and will be used by the Local Authority and Health Board in future service planning and developments.

PAVS can offer support to community and voluntary groups through membership of the Pembrokeshire Engagement & Co-production Practitioners Network. For more information, contact sophie.buckley@pavs.org.uk