Co-Produced Workforce Development in Mental Health Services: Lived Experience in Training, Supervision and Culture
Co-production in mental health services is often discussed in the context of care planning, activities and community inclusion. In practice, some of the biggest quality gains come when lived experience is embedded into the workforce system itself — how staff are trained, supervised, supported and held to consistent standards. This article focuses on practical delivery: how providers design workforce development with lived experience partners, how that shapes everyday practice, and how learning is evidenced for commissioning and inspection. It links to the Co-Production, Lived Experience & Personalisation topic area and sits alongside core operational foundations within Service Models & Care Pathways.
Why workforce co-production matters in regulated mental health delivery
Workforce systems drive day-to-day experience for people using services. Training content influences language, boundaries and de-escalation. Supervision quality influences risk formulation, curiosity and professional challenge. Induction standards influence whether staff see restrictive practice as “normal” or as something to be actively reduced. When lived experience is absent from workforce development, services can drift toward compliance-only practice: staff learn policies, but not the impact of how those policies feel in real life.
Embedding lived experience does not mean replacing professional training standards. It means strengthening them by adding the missing operational test: “If we delivered it this way every day, what would that do to someone’s trust, hope and willingness to engage?” The strongest models treat lived experience input as a designed, assured component of the training and supervision framework — not a guest talk or a one-off workshop.
What “good” looks like: workforce co-production as a system, not an event
Providers that do this well typically build a repeatable system with clear boundaries and governance. Common features include:
- Defined roles for lived experience contributors (e.g., training co-facilitator, induction reviewer, practice feedback panel member).
- Competency mapping so co-produced training links to role expectations (support worker, senior, team leader, registered manager).
- Planned touchpoints across the year (induction, refresher cycles, incident learning, supervision themes).
- Safeguards for contributors (support, debrief, boundaries, confidentiality, expenses, accessible materials).
- Evidence routes (attendance, competence checks, supervision records, observations, incident metrics, feedback trends).
This framing matters because commissioners and inspectors look for reliability: not whether co-production happened once, but whether it is embedded and repeatable across teams, shifts and staff turnover.
Operational example 1: co-produced induction that changes day-to-day practice
Context
A supported mental health service with high staff turnover finds repeated themes in incidents and complaints: people report feeling “managed” rather than supported, staff appear overly directive, and early restrictions are used “to be safe.” New starters complete mandatory e-learning, but practice remains inconsistent.
Support approach
The provider rebuilds induction with lived experience partners as part of a structured redesign group. The aim is not to add content, but to change how staff understand power, distress and engagement in the first two weeks of employment.
Day-to-day delivery detail
- Two lived experience partners co-facilitate a 90-minute induction module on “how support feels,” using anonymised real scenarios from the service (arrival, room checks, medication prompts, crisis conversations).
- Induction includes a “language and tone” practice lab: staff rehearse everyday phrases (requests, boundaries, refusals) and receive feedback on impact and alternatives.
- New starters shadow a “practice lead” shift where the focus is engagement and autonomy (not tasks). The practice lead uses a short observation checklist and records two strengths and one development point per shift.
- End-of-week reflection requires staff to write a short entry on how they would reduce restriction while managing risk, linked to the person’s plan and known triggers.
How effectiveness is evidenced
The provider evidences change through induction completion data, observed practice scores at week 2 and week 6, and trend review of early restriction use (e.g., frequency of room-entry without consent, blanket checks, “house rules” being applied without individual rationale). Complaints themes are reviewed quarterly to see whether “tone and control” issues reduce over time.
Operational example 2: co-facilitated training that strengthens de-escalation and reduces restrictive practice
Context
A community-based supported accommodation service supports people with recurring crises, trauma histories and inconsistent engagement. Incidents show that staff attempt de-escalation, but escalate unintentionally by focusing on rule enforcement and rapid problem-solving rather than connection and regulation.
Support approach
The provider redesigns its de-escalation training to be co-facilitated by a clinician and a lived experience trainer. The focus is the “micro-skills” of crisis support: pace, posture, language, choice, and relational safety.
Day-to-day delivery detail
- Training uses role-play built from actual service incident narratives, anonymised and agreed through governance.
- Staff practise “first 60 seconds” responses: what they do and say on arrival, how they offer choices, how they reduce shame and threat.
- After training, the service introduces a short “post-crisis check-in script” and a one-page “what helps when I’m distressed” sheet co-produced with each person, kept accessible in the staff handover file.
- Team leaders run monthly “practice refreshers” during shift overlap: 20-minute drills on one skill (e.g., offering choices without abandoning boundaries).
How effectiveness is evidenced
Effectiveness is evidenced through incident review showing whether early de-escalation steps are documented and followed, reduction in the duration and intensity of crisis episodes, and improved post-incident feedback from people using the service. The provider also monitors whether staff use agreed alternatives before considering restrictions, and whether restrictive interventions are recorded with clear rationale and proportionality.
Operational example 3: lived experience input into supervision themes and practice leadership
Context
Supervision happens regularly but becomes task-focused: rota pressures, sickness, and compliance checklists dominate. Staff feel unsupported with complex relational work, and managers struggle to build a consistent practice culture across multiple sites.
Support approach
The provider introduces a supervision framework with quarterly themes shaped by a lived experience feedback panel. Themes reflect what people say matters most in day-to-day support: respect, privacy, listening, predictable responses, and involvement in decisions.
Day-to-day delivery detail
- Each quarter has a supervision theme (e.g., “how we say no safely,” “supporting choice when anxious,” “repair after conflict”).
- Managers use a consistent set of reflective prompts, plus one observed practice activity per quarter (e.g., sit-in on a keywork session, review a crisis debrief, observe a medication prompt conversation).
- Team leaders bring one anonymised case example to a monthly practice meeting, using a simple structure: context, triggers, what staff tried, what worked, what didn’t, what next.
- Lived experience panel provides quarterly feedback on whether themes match real experience and whether improvements are felt in practice, using short accessible questions rather than long surveys.
How effectiveness is evidenced
The provider evidences impact by auditing supervision quality (presence of reflection, agreed actions, follow-up), tracking staff confidence measures for specific skills, and correlating practice themes with incident and complaint themes. Improvements are logged through governance minutes and supervision audits, showing a line of sight between feedback, learning and change.
Commissioner expectation
Commissioner expectation: Commissioners typically expect providers to demonstrate a stable, competent workforce with clear development pathways, supervision, and consistent practice standards across teams. Where co-production is claimed, commissioners will expect it to be operationally meaningful: embedded in training, induction, care planning and quality review, with evidence of how it improves outcomes (engagement, reduced escalation, fewer avoidable admissions, improved experience).
Providers can meet this by linking co-produced workforce activity to measurable service priorities (e.g., reduced restrictive practice, improved engagement, improved crisis response) and showing governance controls (training cycles, competence checks, supervision quality audits, learning loops).
Regulator / Inspector expectation (e.g., CQC)
Regulator / Inspector expectation (e.g., CQC): Inspectors will look for a workforce that understands rights, dignity, involvement and safe care, and can evidence that staff are supported and competent. Claims of co-production must be reflected in day-to-day behaviour: how staff communicate, how decisions are made, how people are involved, and how learning is embedded after incidents. Inspectors are likely to test this through interviews, observations, training records, supervision records, and evidence of learning and improvement.
Where lived experience is embedded into workforce systems, providers should be able to show not just attendance, but changed practice: observations, reflective supervision records, incident learning evidence, and feedback demonstrating improvement over time.
Governance and assurance: making workforce co-production inspection-ready
To make this defensible, governance needs to cover both quality and safeguarding. Practical controls include:
- Terms of reference for lived experience roles (scope, boundaries, confidentiality, payment/expenses, support and debrief).
- Training governance (annual plan, content approval, version control, attendance monitoring, refresher cycles).
- Competence assurance (observations, supervision prompts, scenario-based assessments, probation sign-off).
- Learning governance (incident themes feeding into training updates; complaints themes feeding into supervision themes).
- Safeguarding alignment so co-produced approaches strengthen, not weaken, risk management and professional accountability.
This approach supports consistency: it reduces reliance on “good individual staff” and builds a shared practice culture that survives turnover and service pressure.