Table 1

Coproduction challenges and solutions developed at each stage of the project

Project stage	Coproduction challenge	Care/solution
1—A level playing field	Managing and capitalising on the variability of knowledge, experiences and abilities of the team to conduct a qualitative mapping that is theoretically and methodologically sound, and culturally appropriate. Adult researchers don’t know the specific language and codes that are common to young people and their creative process.	Education and training strategy for youth leadership in focus groups Investment in interpersonal knowledge of team members. The focus group/interview guide is coproduced by youth and adult researchers; youth researchers lead creation of a vignette in video format, with a character that would captivate the attention of the interviewees. Focus groups/interviews are co-delivered by pairs composed of youth and adult researchers.
2—Our differences, our learning community	The entry of a new group of media professionals, influencing the coproduction dynamics, brought new learning challenges and more relational differences to assimilate.	Innovation Lab promotes knowledge exchange: media professionals involved in the project present the chat-story programming model; researchers present results of the mapping and concept definitions; young researchers translate concepts into artistic and cultural references relevant to Brazilian young people.
3—A secure base from which to connect	‘Not everything is young people’s responsibility’ appears in the results of our mapping study, but the project does not include the voice of adult stakeholders who might support adolescent participation in the setting where the chat-story will be implemented (ie, schools). The incorporation of multiple advisory groups adds complexity to the practice of coproduction.	Policy advisors on education and adolescent health suggest creating an advisory committee with teachers and education professionals to anticipate challenges and facilitate the implementation of the intervention in the school context. The School Community Committee and Chat-Story Advisory Committee are formed, managed by adult researchers. Periodic meetings are jointly facilitated by young researchers and adult researchers for specific inputs. Cohesion within the core team provides a secure base to expand and manage increasing complexity, as difficulties are talked through and managed together.
4—Care, transparency and accountability	Balancing expectations of all agents involved in the chat-story writing process, including the creative collaborators and needs identified during the mapping stage. The creative professionals express overload from numerous revisions of the chat-story script. Young researchers note limits to the listening sensitivity of peers and partners, work overload, as well as the need to develop greater ‘internal transparency’ of our shared work processes. Adult researchers invite young researchers to express problems and difficulties they perceive in coproduction and decision-making, as well as pointing to the lack of punctuality, presence, responsiveness in WhatsApp communication, and the fact that cameras are often turned off during meetings.	This problem did not have a satisfactory solution for everyone. More than 10 versions of the chat-story were created, with collective revisions and recurrent negotiations regarding characters and structure of the story. The story needed to be revised in the test phase. Meetings to renegotiate deadlines and division of work, and to resolve differences in creative perspectives and schedules. Strengthened coproduction structure We tested a routine of sharing the achievements and non-achievements via WhatsApp, with emojis of clinking glasses and pineapples. We also tested group activities—remote or face-to-face—to build common understandings of co-production and our process, using online padlets and cardboard papers, and including leisure activities at waterfalls and in parks in Brasilía. Caring for each other Relaxed meetings enabled frank expression on the part of adult and young researchers, not always focusing on problems arising from the project. Young researchers mention undergrad and mental health pressures, beyond privately reporting more delicate cases that became barriers to active participation.
5—The team as a living organism	Tiredness in the collective construction of the chat-story generates the perception that it is better to invest less in everyone’s synergy in all tasks due to the lack of time. Adult researchers had more time available for the project (eg, one of the adult researchers was full-time employed) than young researchers, as well as more skills for production and dissemination of the generated knowledge via research papers. Young researchers had overall higher video-making skills. The groups had little time to train each other in those skills.	Work partitioning: young and adult researchers took turns in leading scientific dissemination and academic conferences. Some decisions were made by representatives of each group rather than full team. The audio-visual production for conferences became a mixed task: some of the recording, scriptwriting and video editing was executed by young researchers; some was executed by an adult researcher and an external company. Instagram content creation, however, was almost exclusive to young researchers. Young and adult researchers were distributed across different research papers, with adult researchers leading the process and sharing tasks. There was also a reorganisation of schedules with extension of deadlines, to make better use of the co-production format.
6—Friendship for knowledge and care	The radical participation in each other’s lives was clear, with team members disclosing personal vulnerabilities at a level that is not commonly seen in research environments, at least from our previous experience.	The openness to surprises, to the unforeseen, and the attention to suffering not necessarily derived from the research, contributed to the emergence of friendship in the group, who took ten hours to say goodbye at the end of the project.