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Co-design reconfigured as a tool for youth wellbeing and education: a community collaboration case study
Abstract
In the Community Collaboration reported in this paper co-design was `reconfigured' as a means for supporting youth wellbeing and educational outcomes for young people, including capability, confidence and connections that can contribute to longer-term wellbeing benefits within a particular community. While Participatory Design has always been an approach that shapes situations of the future and the capacities and skills needed to realize those, `co-design' as promoted within the public sector in New Zealand and Australia has tended to position co-design as a means for delivering new "designs". Less emphasis has been placed on the benefits of mutual learning that it produces, including new skills and capacities needed to action change. This paper shares how these additional and significant outcomes of participatory practice have been pursued and made visible within a specific case study.
... There is a need for research, exploring how design can contribute to tackling place-based inequality and distributing the benefits to more people and places in the UK Design Council, 2018Kimbell et al., 2021). Collaborative design approaches have been applied to provide underrepresented people an active role in developing design interventions that directly benefit them and their communities (Galleguillos Ramírez & Coşkun, 2020;Hagen et al., 2018;Zamenopoulos & Alexiou, 2018). However, there is limited literature on the of use co-design with young people who do not have fair access to learning and work opportunities in the UK, therefore this research looks to explore this area. ...
... To deliver lasting value to those involved and their communities, the approach should consider the sustainability of the intervention before, during and after co-design (Sejer Iversen & Dindler, 2014). Co-design approaches can be used to create design outcomes including products, services and experiences, and being actively involved is believed to have the potential to deliver social value to participants (Hagen et al., 2018;Prendiville & Akama, 2016;Sanders & Simons, 2009). This research uses the Sanders and Stappers (2008) view of co-design as those who are and are not formally trained in design working together through a design process, which includes principles, processes and a collection of tools to guide the participants (Blomkamp, 2018;Sanders & Stappers, 2008). ...
... Furthermore, all reported that the workshops made them feel included, listened to and many described how they felt valued and respected by faciliators and other participants, particularly in the way in which their ideas were acknowledged and developed. This builds on research that indicates the potential of co-design to have a positive social impact on participants (Hagen et al., 2018;Prendiville & Akama, 2016;Sanders & Simons, 2009) and in this research, a co-design approach becomes a tool for youth futures and employment support. The project continues to evolve beyond the initial workshops and arguably the outcomes have the potential to influence young peoples' lives going into the future and contribute to socio-economic changes for the rural communities, addressing geographical inequalities. ...
This paper explores how co-design approaches contribute to support, learning and work opportunities for young people who are socially and economically disadvantaged because of where they live in the UK. The paper presents a project in which an arts organisation, design researcher and young people living in three rural areas in the North West of England came together to co-design opportunities for rural youth. The approach benefitted all involved, delivering outcomes such as new networks, youth spaces, paid work opportunities and transformed the arts organisation’s practice. The place-based co-design approach broadened awareness of rural opportunities, shifted views on living and working rurally, increased confidence, developed skills and created informal career guidance spaces. The paper advocates for design research to address place-based socio-economic inequalities, therefore “levelling up” or rebalancing the learning, support and work opportunities for young people, therefore investing in peoples’ lives through collaborative design.
... The second phase was to bring together insights from the four local engagements to advocate for changes to the current national HAF policy to better support young people's needs. As young people were the focus of the workshop engagements, the activities were designed with principles of play, co-operation and mutual learning, that have been recognised as effective ways to engage young people (see Hagen et al., 2018;Nicholas et al., 2012). ...
... Co-design holds promise in the Aotearoa NZ context, yet closing the gap between potential and meaningful outcomes is needed (Mark and Hagen, 2020). Pertinent examples of co-design with children to influence local environments include physical (Carroll et al., 2017(Carroll et al., , 2019Wake and Wang, 2016) and social (Hagen et al., 2018) foci. Scholars highlight the challenges of actualising children's ideas from collaborative design processes. ...
Our study sought to understand adult decision-makers' views on what was important for actualising children's ideas using co-design, towards creating health-promoting local environments. Ten adult decision-makers, experienced in co-design with children aged 5-13 years in Aotearoa New Zealand, participated in individual interviews. We generated three themes (Empowering children within co-design; Being intentional about children's influence; Curating who is involved) using reflexive thematic analysis. Our themes informed a novel framework of 'impactful co-design' accompanied by a practical checklist for adult decision-makers (practitioners, policy-makers, and researchers). Study findings affirm co-designing local neighbourhoods as an inherently social and technical endeavour, advocate for greater consideration of inclusivity and cultural context, and highlight the need for co-design with children to include safety, empowerment, and evaluation. We position impactful co-design as one useful process to enact children's meaningful participation.
... It is commonly assumed that a co-design process -understood here as participatory, involving expert and non-expert profiles to the design process, including the ideation phase -not only provides relevant and meaningful design solutions for stakeholders but also holds transformative effects on participants (Blomkamp, 2018). Some examples of these effects are empathy (Tuomala & Baxter, 2019;Yuan & Dong, 2014), ownership (Broadley & Smith, 2018;van Rijn & Stappers, 2008), learning -which may result in changes in old practices and adoption of new ones (Hagen et al., 2018) -as well as psychological benefits such as a sense of personal growth (Corcoran et al., 2018). ...
... In recent years, there is an evidence showing that co-design approach benefits students in supporting their empowerment and engagement. 1 The practice of designing arts emphasizes the nature of design activities, respect for different opinions, non-technical and nonverbal engagement, and continuous evaluation in the design process. 2 It is believed that service-learning subject practicing expressive textile arts in co-design process is effective to bring benefits to students. They can develop new skills and enhance their community engagement. ...
This study aims to find out the impact of expressive textile arts practice in co-design process on undergraduate students after taking a series of co-design textile arts and fashion creativity workshops from the service learning subject, “Community Engagement through Expressive Textile Arts and Fashion” offered by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2018and 2019. A total of 38 prototypes had been jointly created by ex-mentally ill persons, people with intellectual disabilities, subject lecturers and undergraduate students during the co-design workshops in these two cohorts. Concepts of ex-mentally ill persons and people with intellectual disabilities in the community, expressive arts therapy, textile arts, expressive textile arts and service-learning subject were introduced in this subject. In the co-design process, students were expected to gain new knowledge and skills after they participated in the lectures, seminars, workshops and mini fashion show of the service-learning subject. In this study, quantitative research method was used to explore the impacts of co-design process on students practicing expressive textile arts with their service recipients. For the results, positive impacts are found on students regard to their participation in this service-learning subject. The main advancements include empowerment and enhancement of community engagement.
... Using a youth work approach, we sought to empower schools as key stakeholders to actively support biosecurity communications in their area and shape their communities' approaches as they see fit. We aimed to develop creative, reflective, and evaluative skills in young people throughout the co-design process, working within and beyond the curriculum and normal school environment (Hagen et al. 2018;Tierney et al. 2021). This engagement improved self-reported biosecurity awareness locally and helped us design a resource pack to reach more young people, supporting RSPB strategy and conservation objectives (Fig. 1 ...
Here, we reflect on the process and outcomes of co-designing seabird conservation resources with upper-primary-aged pupils. We focused on biosecurity (protecting wildlife from potential invasive species), an intellectually and emotionally complex topic which includes many social issues alongside ecology. Public awareness and understanding are vital to biosecurity, and we aimed to engage schools and pupils as key stakeholders in their local biodiversity and its protection. Using a youth work approach, we facilitated pupils' direction of their own learning practices and the development of creative, reflective, and evaluative skills. Through co-design, we developed more relevant, desired, and empowering resources than conventional methods could produce. From April to June 2021, we worked with 106 young people across Scotland as part of the Biosecurity for LIFE project, raising local awareness of biosecurity as part of the project's wider conservation aims. Teachers and pupils flourished within the six-week programme and its co-design framework, developing outstanding work and quickly adapting to a novel topic. Teachers saw positive outcomes throughout the Curriculum for Excellence and Learning for Sustainability, much of which came from pupils' generative and collaborative working. The resources produced met the needs of staff and students, including local specificity, flexibility, and Gaelic translation, with pupils' outputs emphasising creative and active ways of learning. We see co-design as a useful and empowering model for conservation education, helping teachers to navigate demanding curricula and pupils to direct their own learning, find their voice, and cover issues relevant to their own experiences.
Objectives: The Pasifika Prediabetes Youth Empowerment Programme (PPYEP) was a community-based research project that aimed to investigate empowerment and co-design modules to build the capacity of Pasifika youth to develop community interventions for preventing prediabetes.
Methods: This paper reports findings from a formative evaluation process of the programme using thematic analysis. It emphasises the adoption, perceptions and application of empowerment and co-design based on the youth and community providers’ experiences.
Results: We found that the programme fostered a safe space, increased youth's knowledge about health and healthy lifestyles, developed their leadership and social change capacities, and provided a tool to develop and refine culturally centred prediabetes-prevention programmes. These themes emerged non-linearly and synergistically throughout the programme.
Conclusions: Our research emphasises that empowerment and co-design are complementary in building youth capacity in community-based partnerships in health promotion.
Implications for public health: Empowerment and co-design are effective tools to develop and implement culturally tailored health promotion programmes for Pasifika peoples. Future research is needed to explore the programme within different Pasifika contexts, health issues and Indigenous groups.
The aim of this paper is to explicitly link co-design to well-being and expand the conversation about the influence of the co-design process on well-being. This paper highlights considerations for co-design researchers and practitioners interested in enhancing the value created through co-design. The authors draw from discussions in transformative service research (TSR) to better understand how co-design influences well-being. Co-design is defined as a process of joint inquiry and imagination where diverse actors share and combine their knowledge. Based on the broad definition of service set out in service-dominant logic (SDL), the authors take the position that co-design is a form of service and therefore stress the relevance of TSR to co-design. The paper identifies six dimensions of well-being discussed in TSR that extend and highlight gaps in co-design literature related to the influence of the co-design process on well-being. The authors suggest that these dimensions become a component of future evaluations of the co-design process and point to opportunities for further research related to how co-design influences well-being and supports transformation.
This paper examines the use of interdisciplinary project co-design, as a mechanism for increasing the capacity of a school, and promoting the growth of teachers' professional practice in an urban high school setting. Changing teaching practices and the professional culture within a school can be extremely difficult. Simply providing resources about novel strategies can be ineffective. In fact, in some school cultures, suggestions for classroom practice change can be received with hostility, being viewed by some teachers as acts questioning their professional competence. This study describes how a strategically chosen task, interdisciplinary project co-design, was used by external consultants as a productive, non-threatening mechanism for instructional improvement, by simultaneously enhancing classroom practices and cultivating the growth of professional school community and organizational practices.
A new funded public engagement project that aims to introduce principles and tools of inclusive design to secondary school teachers and enable them to teach their students to think creatively. The research team is a multi-disciplinary one with common belief in inclusive design. Team members include engineers, design researchers, ergonomists and a pedagogy researcher. This paper explains the background and rationale of the project. More important, we found three tensions among these different academic and practical disciplines that were identified in the first planning meeting of this 18-month project. We also found their implications to participatory design and for reflections at the later stage of the project.
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