As it is coproduction week 30th June to 4th July 2025, we are sharing examples of where we do it well. Safeguarding can be challenging – a term often misunderstood or even feared – and a role of social care that can be distressing for people. In late 2023, the Council undertook a piece of work to better understand people’s lived experience of safeguarding. 

Council staff working in safeguarding connected with Manchester People First, Healthwatch and the Afro Caribbean Care Group to hold community sessions with people who had been at the centre of a safeguarding, and hear about how their experience had been. The rich feedback was collated, six themes arose that, if addressed, would significantly improve people’s experience: 

• Citizen’s voice 
• Clarity of processes 
• Communication 
• Fear of raising safeguarding concerns 
• Prevention 
• Cultural awareness. 

Five people expressed an interest in working with the Council to address some of these challenges. Those volunteers met with safeguarding colleagues to develop a plan to build a coproduction space with volunteers being ‘experts by experience’. The following approach was agreed: 

• We offered everyone interested a 1:1 space to answer their questions about the group so they could make an informed decision around participating. 
• We explored any needs they may have that could be a potential barrier to them taking part and seek their input on what the group could look like. 
• The group agreed their core values to create a sense of safety and shared intentions as a group. 
• We meet at times and venues that suit everyone’s availability and expressed needs. 

The group has evolved and now consists of three volunteers with lived experience, two participants from Healthwatch and Manchester Local Care Organisation colleagues from adult social care, safeguarding and communications. The group is open, honest, confidential, and we all have equal say on issues. 

The group named itself Our Safeguarding Voices Action Group and agreed a programme of work to address the issues raised in the initial conversations. So far, the group has: 

• Codesigned an accessible campaign to raise awareness of what safeguarding is and how to report concerns. 
• Codesigned how to test and launch the campaign with Manchester services and the public. 
• Agreed to increase membership, subject to new members agreeing to the group’s core values and being supported to join the group by the Co-production Lead and Safeguarding Manager 
• Agreed to maintain the current meeting structure and frequency as this felt the right balance for the group. 
• Started planning the next phase of the programme to improve people’s experience of adult safeguarding in Manchester. 

Reflections from members of the group: 

‘I feel we were all fully involved in deciding what we wanted to do, and it wasn’t just someone telling us.’ – volunteer. 

‘In the group I strongly agree. I have always felt this when working with the council in the past, but in this group, we are all able to get our message across and all speak.’ – volunteer.  

‘I have loved being part of this group – the results we got at the end of our co-design sessions were so different to what I would have come up with on my own and it’s all the richer for it’ – Katie, Communications Manager.