Was it really co-production? An evaluation by co-producers of an Italian health promotion initiative.

Over the last two decades, the reconfiguration of relationships, roles and information exchanges has changed people expectations and roles with regards to producers and services providers. The co-production phenomenon have moved also the actors in the public domain into new directions. With this work, the authors aim to evaluate a co-production process, by involving into the assessment the co-producers, both providers and users. The authors adopted the framework of Boyle and Harris (2009) and used a single case-study design with a mixed methodology for answering to the question “Was it really co-production?”. Data were gathered during the co-production initiative beFood, implemented in Tuscany (Italy) between 2016 and 2017. The preliminary results show that the process followed in beFood were very good perceived by all the co-producers. Some differences emerged, showing that experts (the providers) assessed more positive the aspects related to their work of supporting people in being active partners and of recognizing and growing their skills. On the contrary, more efforts should be done for improving the experts capabilities and willingness in supporting people in being really active in sharing knowledge, in playing a role equal to the providers’ role and in creating more value for themselves and other people. Co-production implies a deep change in the providers’ training and role, as well as in the power structure within the provider organization.