Tuesday 10 March 2026 | 13:30-14:30
Stream: People
Session format: Workshop
Chair:  Anna Burhouse Northumbria Healthcare NHSFT; England

This session brings together two powerful case studies that show how centering lived experience can reshape health and safeguarding systems in very different contexts. In Zimbabwe, researchers, healthcare providers, and people living with HIV used Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) to integrate sexual and reproductive health with HIV care, creating more resilient and patient-centred services despite external disruptions. In the UK, the My Voice Matters initiative co-designed communication toolkits with children and young people to ensure their voices are heard in child protection medical assessments, transforming safeguarding practices across 20 NHS trusts. Through these examples, participants will explore how co-production—whether with patients, service users, or children—can bridge system gaps, amplify silenced voices, and drive sustainable improvements in quality and safety. The session will combine storytelling, practical tools, and interactive reflection to equip attendees with strategies for embedding co-production in their own settings.

Part 1 - Building resilient HIV care through co-production with patients and providers: integrating sexual and reproductive health and HIV in Zimbabwe.

This session explores how a co-production methodology - Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) was adapted to integrate sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and HIV services in Zimbabwe’s public health clinics. We will share how researchers, healthcare providers and people living with HIV (PLWHIV) co-designed locally relevant service improvements using filmed narratives, pathway tracking, emotional journey mapping, and collaborative workshops. We will also reflect on how the initiative weathered disruptions caused by a 90-day USAID stop-work order. Participants will leave with practical tools to adapt co-design methods for fragmented health systems, particularly in low-resource, high-burden contexts. The session will also share key insights from affected service users and providers, amplifying their voices on resilience, service gaps, and power-sharing in healthcare redesign.

Rumbidzai Gumbie London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; UK

Part 2 - Changing UK practices in safeguarding children – co-designed communication toolkits to ensure all children’s voices can be heard

In this session we will be sharing how safeguarding practices are changing in the UK to improve how we hear the voice of the child. We will share the learnings from a multi-site, multi-agency, co-designed quality improvement initiative that has been rolled out in 20 NHS trusts and health boards across England, Scotland and Wales, introducing visual communication toolkits into child protection medical assessments. We will cover how this has transformed how the voices of pre-verbal, non-verbal and silenced children are heard and how the initiative led to significant improvements in the quality and quantity of the voice of the child captured in care plans. Attendees will be able to see the new resources that have been created and hear directly from those involved how empowering children to share insights into their lived experience of abuse, regardless of whether they want to or are able to talk, has helped safeguard them.

Claire Stewart Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust; UK