Our Blog

Throughout our partnership with Inclusion as Prevention we’ve engaged with 98 young people to design and improve services, and early intervention for young people with experience of the justice system. It is estimated that a further 300 also participated through surveys and attending workshops. We’ve tackled challenges, overcome barriers, and learned together as a team to understand the system in South Lanarkshire, to ensure young people aren’t just supported when they enter the justice system, but that the services are there to prevent them from doing so.

Our Learning with PEDAL: Using a Rapid-cycle design and testing to develop the “Playtime with Books” programme

Dartington Service Design Lab partnered with University of Cambridge Centre for Research in Play in Education Development and Learning (PEDAL) to develop new virtual ways to support parents and children to engage in book sharing, which has traditionally been done face-to-face . We are now releasing the final report from this work and sharing our learning for others to put into practice.

Building systems change initiatives into practice

This blog is the first in our series on systems thinking. In this blog we explore one of the systems dynamics tools we use called goal-gap structures to help us understand people’s different motivations for change. We will be launching a systems training programme this autumn where you can learn more about these approaches!

Hard won lessons: A decade review bringing about systemic change in children's services

At the Lab, we’ve been developing and refining our approach to facilitating systemic change, by generating and integrating diverse evidence of what children and young people need and want. We have had varying degrees of success. We’re releasing our report from the Early Action Project in Renfrewshire to both reflect on our experiences of trying to bring about systemic change in children’s services and encourage others to learn from our approach, to support the long-term sustainability of systems change that is both wanted and needed.

News, Publications, ReflectionBLOGAugust 16, 2023Kate, systems change, Early Action, Rachel Lily, Kate Tobin, Scotland, Renfrewshire

Incorporating youth voice into systems change in South Lanarkshire

Over the last five years we have been working to change the systems of support for young people who come into conflict with law in Scotland. We’ve been doing that through co-production with young people to re-imagine the kinds of supports that help keep them included in their communities and in the supports on offer to them. Too often young people are excluded from systems of support when they come into conflict with the law. This project fundamentally reframes the work of prevention and early intervention to be young-person centred and inclusive of their diverse experiences and needs.

Discovering what matters to communities when researching mental health

This Mental Health Awareness Week we’re exploring our role as researchers and designers in projects that centre mental health and wellbeing for young people. We are particularly curious about how we establish the right conditions for exploring these issues with our partners in the work – and how we can best share our lessons with others.

In this blog, we focus on three areas that have become especially important to us at Dartington:

the beginning of the projects and our own standpoint as we begin,
the process of establishing strong relationships that can hold complexity and trust, and
the sustainability and impact of our shared work on mental health.

News, ReflectionBLOGMay 18, 2023equity, Learning, mental health, research, Design, Catherine-rose, alice, Rachel Lily, Alice Hewson

How co-designing with young people can change your practice - a look at gender-based violence

When I first entered the Inclusion As Prevention project, I thought I would approach it as I would working with any client seeking animation support. The brief was an exciting one, working with an innovative, community-driven project that seeks to support young voices through co-design and produce an animation to educate young people and their families on the topic of domestic abuse and gender-based violence.

The role of culture in the growth of service design

Service Design is a discipline that's yet finding its feet within the charity sector and developing in itself as a whole. The job of a Service Designer is to help organisations understand needs, solve problems and adapt to an ever-changing world. This is only possible in an environment that has its eyes open to learning and its heart ready to act on change based initiatives. Here, Vridhi reflects on this and particularly on the role that culture plays in allowing the practice of Design to grow and mature.

ReflectionBLOGNovember 7, 2022Service Design, Vridhi, Behaviour Change, Service Improvement

Using an Appreciative Inquiry Framework: Bridging ‘what is’ to ‘what could be’

Comic Relief’s Rise and Shine programme funds organisations supporting early childhood development for vulnerable families in the UK and globally. Earlier this year, grantees came together for a day of reflection and learning, facilitated by Dartington Service Design Lab, the Learning Partners for the fund.

The goal of the learning event was to create a space where UK Rise and Shine grantees could reflect on what they’ve learnt to date, to inform their planning for the future as the funding programme nears its conclusion.

Deepening conversations around young men's mental health

This year, World Mental Health Day's leading campaign is to ‘make mental health and wellbeing a global priority’. Wellbeing and mental health is a key feature of the work here at the Lab to improve outcomes for children and young people. NHS digital estimate that 1 in 6 young people have a diagnosable mental illness, with many 5 – 16 year olds reporting experiencing low mood, anxiety and eating disorders.

Last year, we joined forces with the Mental Health Foundation, Black Thrive and Colourful Minds on the “Becoming a Man” (BAM) project, a US-born programme developed by Youth Guidance, aimed at exploring and supporting young men to learn and practice impulse control and emotional regulation, among other social skills. Our job as the evaluators is to establish whether and how BAM might be feasible to deliver in Lambeth, South London.

The mirror, the mentor and the midwife: What makes a good Learning Partner?

As we’ve explored and reflected on Learning Partner contracts, we’ve identified three roles that a Learning Partner takes; The mirror, the mentor and the midwife. Each role blends the “learning for” and “learning with” elements that we described previously, and in our experience, Learning Partners need to be confident shifting between the three as learning needs and capacity changes.

ReflectionBLOGJune 23, 2021Collaboration, Service Design, Learning, Learning Partners, evaluation, services, funders, funding, impact, Keira

Tackling racism in social research and design: Why the glacial pace of change?

This is a blog about anti-racism, and the actions and commitments we are taking at Dartington Service Design Lab to address it.

ReflectionBLOGJune 16, 2021resilience, Evidence, evaluation, Tim, Racism, Anti-racism, inequality, structural racism, research, Design

Re-use and repair: Small but mighty steps for practitioners to reach families remotely

In January 2021, we were funded by Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Reponse to run a 12-week research and design project focused on reaching families remotely, in partnership with five charity partners from across the country. The whole research and design process culminated in the ‘9 steps for reaching families remotely’ - services and practitioners struggling to reach and engage with digitally excluded people.

Getting Learning Partnerships right – the building blocks

In our last blog, we looked at the motivations behind Learning Partnerships. In this one we examine some of the conditions we think are necessary for success – building on our experience, and that of our partners at Renaisi, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. In particular, we look at taking time to set the project up, develop consensus about aims and being explicit about creating the conditions for learning to happen and be acted upon.

The importance of nature for mental health

Nature is an important and well-evidenced mechanism for supporting mental health for both children and for adults (WHO, 2014). We’ve explored this in our work on potential interventions for enhancing the mental health and wellbeing of children and young adults in the Midlothian area of Scotland.

The unstoppable rise of the Learning Partner

It’s perhaps unsurprising that we have been drawn to the concept of the Learning Partner and all the term suggests; that is, working with organisations to enable learning and improvement, and doing so collaboratively. Having carried out several roles badged in this way, we wanted to reflect, as a team and with peers, on what the role can look like, what skills it requires, and what it can contribute to organisations, and to the sector more broadly.

ReflectionBLOGApril 29, 2021Collaboration, Service Design, Learning, Learning Partners, evaluation, services, funders, funding, impact, Keira

Connecting Families: Sprint Notes from Wrap-Up

During the Connecting Families project - Funded by Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Reponse, and supported by Design agency Shift - we’ll be following a specific Design Process. This is broken into five key phases. These sprint notes will reflect on our learning from each phase. This blog is all about the sprint 'Wrap-Up' phase.

Connecting Families: Sprint Notes from Develop

During the Connecting Families project - Funded by Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Reponse, and supported by Design agency Shift - we’ll be following a specific Design Process. This is broken into five key phases. These sprint notes will reflect on our learning from each phase. This blog is all about the sprint 'Develop' phase.

Connecting Families: Mid-Sprint Notes from Develop

During the Connecting Families project - Funded by Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Reponse, and supported by Design agency Shift - we’ll be following a specific Design Process. This is broken into five key phases. These sprint notes will reflect on our learning from each phase. This blog is all about the mid-sprint 'Develop' phase.

Connecting Families: Sprint Notes from Define

During the Connecting Families project - Funded by Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Reponse, and supported by Design agency Shift - we’ll be following a specific Design Process. This is broken into five key phases. These sprint notes will reflect on our learning from each phase. This blog is all about the 'Define' phase.

DARTINGTON SERVICE DESIGN LAB

⚑ Lower Ground Floor, Higher Mills, Buckfast Abbey, Buckfastleigh, Devon TQ11 0EE

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