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Across our projects at the Dartington Service Design Lab we are seeing many Local Authorities who want to empower parents and other community members to support each other during crucial times – including during children’s early years. The role we play is to ensure that any ‘people powered’ support works in the best way it can. So far, we have learned three key lessons.
Read MoreThe Hothouses for Innovation initiative is a service design collaboration between the Dartington Service Design Lab and Crisis, the national homelessness charity. The aim: to co-produce, with service users, an adaptation to Crisis’ service that would address a new local challenge. Our researcher, Ben Hartridge, explains why it’s vital that service design doesn’t end with one prototype but extends to trying, testing and improving.
Read MoreThere is a clear need for social care services to become more innovative and adaptable to tackle complex challenges in dynamic and changing environments. However, we would argue that traditional approaches to monitoring and evaluation have potential to stifle innovation.
Our researcher, Ben Hartridge, draws on his experience with Crisis – the national homelessness charity, to argue that monitoring and evaluation can and should be designed to support innovation in public services and systems.
Read MoreA recent Guardian article reported spiralling Council spending on social work agency workers.
In this blog, Ben Hartridge takes a closer look at the issue through a Systems Thinking lens.
With Crisis Skylight Oxford, Maria Portugal and Ben Hartridge are designing new information and publicity materials to support outreach work in food banks, which the Skylight is pursuing as part of the Hothouses for Innovation initiative. It’s just a small part of our overall work but provides a neat example of our approach.
Read MoreBen Hartridge, researcher at the Dartington Service Design Lab, reflects on an improbable hour that distils the essence of a Lab Service Design Sprint.
Read MorePublic and private funders have been building, and backing, place-based approaches for the last ten years. But while grant-makers and grantees are busily buzzing the term to each other in tenders, bids, roundtables and meetings, there’s little consensus on what, precisely, they mean. The discourse on place-based approaches is in need of a vital dose of clarity. I recently delved into the literature to see if I could find any.
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