Developing skills to support co-design

A key principle of co-design is capability building within the co-design team. Each team members brings unique skills and expertise, and they should be encouraged to share this expertise with others. This is a way of sharing power within the team.

There are a range of skills and capabilities required to support co-design and consumer engagement requires a range of different skills and capabilities. Some of these are personal attributes and some are developed through experience, reflection and mentoring. However, there are some skills that can taught and acquired, with formal training and resources available to team members if they are seeking to develop skills in the following areas:

• Consumer engagement training: Health Consumers Queensland offers a range of training options for staff and consumers.
• Facilitation: see information and links in The Right Facilitator
• Project management: Metro North Health (internal access only) and Clinical Excellence Queensland
• Quality improvement and implementation: the Translating Research into Practice