Free co-pro seminar with ASCC – Developing Evidence Enriched Practice programme

This seminar will outline the practical application of three key processes in effective co-production partnerships with a focus on children’s services. 

This seminar will be led by Professor Anne Edwards from Oxford University who has spent many years working with children’s services in England, regarding inter-professional learning and practice development. Much of this learning will be transferrable to integrated working in adults’ services. Here is a summary of the subject to be discussed which is highly relevant to effective co-production:
‘Working across practice boundaries on complex societal problems is now commonplace. Yet we know relatively little about what enables it to happen successfully. One analytic challenge for studies of inter-professional work is to understand what mediates collaboration across the boundaries of practices so that what matters for each practice is still in play in the judgements that are made. The argument in this seminar is that attention should be paid to how what matters for each potentially collaborating practitioner is brought to bear on both interpreting and responding to work problems. Using the analytic resources of cultural–historical theory, three conceptual tools are presented. These tools, relational expertise, relational agency and common knowledge, are the outcome of analyses of inter- professional work in studies in England over the last ten years. They are offered as resources for both the analysis and development of cross-practice collaborations. The seminar will present evidence from three recent studies of creating the conditions for inter-professional collaborations in children’s services to examine the construction and use of common knowledge as a resource for those tasked with service integration. Common knowledge is seen as comprising the motives that take forward each contributing practice. It is woven into continuously contestable organisational narratives. These mediate interactions across practice boundaries and give strategic direction to activities in and across services which are in the process of integration.’
If you would like to know more about this event or book a place, please contact Isobel Birden at