Getting the right people around the table

• Mad idea? - Check
• Family support? - Check
• Partners and allies? - Not yet...
• Voices of stakeholders? - No...
• Funding? - Big fat no.

Funding felt like too big of a mountain to scale at this early stage, so I decided I needed some critical friends and some cheerleaders. I set about inviting anyone who was interested to join a small working party.

Now, I'll be honest, this working party (despite being supported by some of the very best people I know) was a total flop.

I was still trying to figure out exactly how all of this might work, and I was wanting to find ways to instil co-production from Day Dot, whilst avoiding going completely public with the proposed service.

Side note: Co-production, for those who aren't familiar, is a process of involving, being led by, and working alongside the people who will ultimately benefit and use the service when you're creating it. This empowers people, helps ensure that you design a service that's actually fit for purpose, and stops you developing too much of a crazy messiah complex. It's also a really fun, fulfilling way of working.

We had our first working group meeting and, despite 50% of what was already a fairly small group not turning up, I found it hugely beneficial. However, I also received a lot of feedback that participants were a little confused, and it appeared that this stemmed from my attempts to involve them in early-stage co-production. It seemed as though participants were very willing to help, but didn't want to overstep, and ultimately needed a bit of a skeleton of what the project might be laid out for them in order to feel safe enough to contribute to it. This was a huge learning curve for me.

We did, however, agree that we would set up the Discovery College under a 'Host Organisation', nestling under a well-established partner, so that we could focus on developing the model in our early years rather than focusing on things like legal status, insurance and payroll.

I canvassed organisations that I was aware of that may have some synergies with the Discovery College model to see if any might be interested in playing this role of a Host.

Incredibly I received 5 (yep, FIVE!) offers, and felt at that point that I had been more than productive enough and deserved a stiff drink and a long holiday.

Instead, I took a few weeks off in May/June to get married, as my little brain definitely couldn't handle trying to juggle both the Discovery College project and writing vows. It was during this time that I realised that I would need to simply make a decision as to which organisation was best suited to act as our Host and that, with this structure in place, we would be in a much better position to involve people in co-production. If I'm honest, I felt a little heart-sore that I hadn't been able to involve stakeholders in this particular decision. However it had become clear that I couldn't promote an opportunity for young people, parents, carers, to get involved in shaping the service, whilst also keeping my vulnerable idea safe from external competitors until it was established enough to be viable.

I did, however, now have some partners and allies in place; my critical friends and my cheerleaders. Next up, appointing a Host...

What does this mean for me?

I made the decision to pursue the Discovery College idea, but I didn't make the decision alone.
Here comes the first of the career/gender conflicts...
I got married (to a wonderful human being) in June of this year, and that meant that this decision would hugely affect him too.
Before making the commitment to find out how feasible my mad idea was, I first needed to check with my partner how he felt about it.
We had been talking about having a child before he turned 35, just 5 short years away at the time, but with this project on the horizon the timeline would be impacted.
We started doing some maths...
If it would take potentially a full year to secure funding and even initiate the project (say all of 2019) and then, with it being my brainchild, a further 4 years minimum to get the model embedded and the future of the service secured we're looking at 2024 before I could justifiably consider maternity leave. The idea of taking up to a year off from a project I've initiated and led at such a pivotal time would feel a betrayal, so pushing back my family priorities for a couple of extra years seemed non-negotiable if this was going to work.
My now-husband, Iron Maiden t-shirt-wearing and leaning against the stove in our kitchen, considered this for a moment while he poked at the onions sizzling in the frying pan. Ultimately, he said it was fine; that I should pursue this if I felt so passionately about it, and he believed in it, and me, 100%.

I felt reassured, but also frustrated that I had had to choose and prioritise - delaying our fledgling family decisions to allow space for my professional identity to grow.
It's something that I hear frequently from my female peers - when at work they feel guilty for leaving their family unattended, when at home they feel they're neglecting their work. Many brilliant women I've known have had their careers take a real stumble when they leave to have a baby, and part-time arrangements can be hard to come by.
The Discovery College was not only igniting me, it was raising in me tensions that I didn't even know existed...