Co-production

PsychUP for Wellbeing holds student voices at the heart of its work to improve student wellbeing, particularly in collaborating with student advisory board members to promote their strategic input.

The student members of our advisory board are central to our co-production strategy. They provide programme-level strategic input into our wider co-production strategies, as well as input into each of our workstreams.

What has co-production meant for PsychUP?

We are a young programme. From our inception we have empowered student voices across the university community to inform all aspects of the programme. This has meant directly involving over 100 UCL students in conducting and evaluating research and contributing to the design, implementation and monitoring of new wellbeing support options.

How can co-production be improved?

This project-level student engagement and consultation is valuable, but true co-production means involving students at the level of strategic decision-making. This is why we have recruited student members to our Advisory Board to collaborate with professional board members to develop PsychUP for Wellbeing's overarching co-production strategy. We will be sharing this strategy later this year.

How are students guiding strategy?

Connecting student voices with high level strategy builds co-production into all levels of the vehicle. Student board members are being supported to take a leading role in promoting wider student input into all areas of PsychUP for Wellbeing's work - divided into three main workstreams: prevention & community; research and evidence and services & pathways.

How are more students reached?

Strategic co-production seeks to widen student consultation, participation and collaboration across the university in a range of formats:

Consultation - one-off meetings for students to provide individual perspectives on particular topics.
Involvement - opportunities for individual students to take active roles, such as in a student voice forum.
Participation - decisions by students to provide ongoing input through a student advisory board.
Co-production - joint decision-making between students and institution staff in co-designing strategy development.

The Student Advisory Board and wider consultations aim to amplify the audibility and impact of unheard student voices. Together, they form a model of concentric circles, each contributing to building a clearer picture of student mental health needs and experiences at UCL.

An image of three circles within each other; the inner circle reads 'SAB sub-groups', the next circle reads 'special interest groups' and the outer circle reads 'wider consultation'