Sharing Our Shared Agreement with the Mental Health, Dementia, Learning Disability and Autism Alliance

A blog by Kirsteen Redmile, Lead Change Manager for Personalisation

Last week Victoria Sleight, Head of Community Mental Health Transformation and I were invited to present the journey of Our Shared Agreement at the Mental Health, Dementia, Learning Disability and Autism (MHDLDA) Alliance.

The Alliance is made up of colleagues from Adult Social Care, the NHS, District Councils, the VCFSE sector, and experts by experience who are responsible for overseeing all the transformational work going on across mental health.

I arrived a little early to discover that the air conditioning was stuck ‘on’ and the room we were in was a little chilly! However, the reception wasn’t, as they had just finished a comprehensive session about the importance of Co–Production and working with experts by experience.

There was a great opportunity to build on this through my presentation, which covered how Our Shared Agreement (OSA) was developed through co-production. I also explained how OSA has become an integral part of several key strategic plans,  and showcased some of the team's excellent OSA branding and assets.

We updated the Alliance on the launch of Our Shared Agreement at the It’s All About People Conference 2024 and reiterated the endorsement that this work has received from the Executive Leadership across the health and care system.

We also used this opportunity to remind them of how intrinsically linked the Our Shared Agreement and the trauma-informed care work are, with the ‘Together We Will’ statements forming part of the Our Shared Agreement Five Foundations.

This can be seen in the ripple map, above. It shows how we’ve got to where we are now and the ripples, or in some cases the waves, Our Shared Agreement is starting to make.

As you can imagine the map generated some interesting and insightful discussions about the importance of developing better relationships and learning from each other, particularly sharing best practice, and people’s stories. 

The MHDLDA meeting was a great session and it is now causing its own ripples, which we are starting to map.

And fortunately, someone fixed the air conditioning and we all left with a warm glow.

If you have any examples of Our Shared Agreement in action or working in a personalised and strengths-based way and would like to share them, please get in touch with us.

Thanks as always!