This paper discusses the impacts of service co-production on public professionals, in contrast to much of the literature that focusses on user, client, or patient perspectives. It outlines preliminary findings of a study of how children
and young people’s mental health services are being informed by a policy shift
towards co-production of public services, which might be impacting on understandings and enactments of professionalism. The study addresses how service co-production is seen and understood by professional staff delivering public services; how co-production inflects existing notions of professionalism; and the associated consequences for the co-creation of value in public service delivery.
Professional staff play key roles in the enactment of co-productive service creation and delivery, although public service co-production can be regarded as
an emergent ‘contingency’ for professionalism, which might challenge traditional
forms of professional knowledge and status. Co-production emphasises the assets service users possess, which it has been argued, might help to improve and reform public services. It opens up public services to being shaped by
diverse forms of knowledge, including the lived-experience of users. This has potential to provide a counterpoint to, or to complement, ‘traditional’ professional
knowledge, thereby facilitating a more open-system perspective on what
constitutes professionalism. This paper reflects on how a co-productive
approach sits with theories of professionalism as occupation- or
organisation-based, as hybrid in nature, or as increasingly buffeted by wider forces (globalisation, individualism, digitalisation). Although wide-ranging and relatively open in many ways, these literatures pay only limited attention to the skills and experiential knowledge of citizens or service users. This suggests that theories of professionalism have yet to fully engage with the implications of co-production, and also raises the possibility that co-productive approaches might simply be transplanted onto more ‘traditional’ modes of public professionalism.
This is the first phase of a mixed-method study of early intervention services designed to meet the mental health needs of children and young people. In the UK this service area is increasingly high-profile, and a number of major reviews have made clinical and economic cases for increased investment. Evidence is drawn from documents, observation, and interviews with service commissioners and third-sector staff. Early findings suggest:
§ ‘Public value’ is evident in co-creation of knowledge about public services. Emphasis is on relationships children already have with each other and with public professionals, and how children want early intervention services embedded within these relationships. This ‘bottom-up ’perspective contrasts with views about ‘top-down’ clinical services and approaches, which are seen by children as more emotionally-remote
§ ‘Collective co-production’ is seen in depictions of third-sector organisations as a voice for children in the programme. However, this normative perspective raises the question of how far co-production actually ‘reaches down’ from strategic co-design to an operational, intrinsic level
§ Third-sector staff are seeking greater recognition of their professionalism as kind of ‘professionalization project’, which involves efforts to move away from what they see as the de-professionalising badge of ‘voluntary sector’. They deploy a narrative emphasising so-called third-sector values, and stress a flexible approach to implementation.
