Our Co-Production Commitment

Building Tools for Our Community with Our Community

Here at Learn and Thrive, young people with Down’s syndrome and learning disabilities are at the heart of our charity. Our vision is to create a world where these individuals thrive.

As we have developed our content, we have always been driven by lived experience. In the early years of the charity, we were using the experience of parents and educators, understanding the challenges they felt their children and young people needed support with. This is how we decided to make our first Learning for Life series, ‘Growing Up and Keeping Safe’, focussing on topics like understanding appropriate touch.

So we started talking. Talking more to our young people about what they wanted and needed. One of the most successful examples of this was when we got a group of young people together for our Community Cooking Day. In July 2025, in a wonderfully sunny London, volunteers supported our community to make a wonderful spread, and during cooking time and short breaks, we got the chance to talk to our young people about what they really wanted to see.

For our How To… Healthy Eating series, we took suggestions directly from our young people on the meals they wanted to learn to make. With obesity being such a problem for so many members of our community, we wanted to make recipes that our young people could enjoy, make independently, and have healthier versions of. We used talkers and communication boards to make sure everyone’s contributions were heard.

Now, several years on, we’re still developing content we know parents and educators want and need, like teaching on online safety. But as we’ve made each series, we’ve always wanted to find ways to makes sure our community is increasingly represented, included, and spotlighted in our content. We know how important it is to see themselves reflected in the media they watch, but taking pride in being a part of filming is another step further.

For us, the next step was truly getting our community involved in the planning side. This was the one part they were missing out on.

Through the coming years and development of our projects, we are committed to co-production with our community every step of the way. Not only in the planning and filming of these series, but also in the feedback and improvements from one series to the next. Alongside our new Youth Panels, we will hear directly from our community on this, from community groups across the UK running sessions with the Learning for Life project.

Our content works best when it’s made for and with our community at the centre of the process.