At a Glance
The Challenge
Barking and Dagenham, a borough in London has the second highest rates of loneliness in London. Previous research has shown that when people come out of hospital their recovery ,physical and mental, as well as their confidence can be much more difficult if they don’t have a strong network of family and friends around them.
This work address one of the Borough’s biggest challenges: helping people who are feeling isolated to build positive friendships building on work that the community and council have done in recent years to understand why, and to design something different.
What We Did
Commissioned by LBBD Council, using joint health and local government grant funding, Care City CIC and Community Resources are leading on behalf of the BD Collective, supported by Ageable CIC, we designed a deeply personal, design led programme that organises the strengths of the B&D community so a person can access help easily.
We were designing a pilot of 100 participants to test the programme. We wanted a long-term approach that builds confidence and connections, trust and belonging so that the impact lasts beyond the programme duration, and so people stay well in the longer term.
How We Did It
Listened to the voices of people who had lived experiences: We engaged deeply with individuals, not just focusing on their isolated moments but also considering their experiences before and after those periods.
Consulted with organizations working with people who have lived experiences: We gathered insights from the VCSE sector to understand the difficulties they face when supporting isolated individuals.
Shifted from a diagnostic approach to a more holistic, human-centered approach: We understood that it was important to approach people with lived experiences with curiosity and care Instead of focusing solely on problem-solving to establish more equitable and compassionate dynamics.
How might we wrap the strengths of a community around a person after discharge, especially those without family, friends or support networks nearby?
Ageable CIC, the organisation I was working for was involved in coordinating an innovative, programme to build a community system resilience model, research during the discovery to help understand and shape the problems/opportunities, to design learning programme and training for the organisations involved, creative facilitation and engagement of workshops
One of my biggest challenges was rapidly immersing myself in the project and getting up to speed, especially since the foundational research and learning had already been completed. This meant I had to rely on second-hand insights from field notes to deeply empathize with users and understand their experiences.
Our Approach
Research
My colleague, Alice, had already done some fantastic groundwork. She interviewed several residents recently discharged from the hospital, capturing their various challenges and stories. She also mapped out their circles of care to get a clearer picture of who was actively supporting them.
Tell me more about you and your life! Where are you from? What matters to you?
Where do you live? What’s your home like?
Can you talk me through what happened and how you ended up in hospital?
Can you talk me through it step by step? / Pre / During / Post / Recovery / Living again
What procedure did you have?Was it a planned one? Who helped you through this time?
How did you feel through the help you needed? Was there anything done that you really hated? Was there anything done that really helped you through this time?
What were the staff like?
Did you feel supported during discharge? What could have made a difference to this? How did you cope when you arrived home - did people help you? Who helped you?
Can you tell us a typical day in your life before and after your stay in hospital?
Who do you have around you to support you? Health care Therapists, Social Care, Support, Friends, Family, Community, Neighbours
Who do you want to have around you?
Who are some people that really matter to you?
Are you in a relationship?
If there was nothing in the way of getting the support that you need - and you had the momentum of your community's support to help you, do anything in your life - what would you want them to do?
What have been some of the real challenges/blockers/or hard times through this?
What are some things you are confident in & not confident in?
What are some things you did have someone by your side through this, like a good friend - what would you want them to be and do?
If you had a magic wand and could be able to make anything happen to help you through this time? What might it be?
Collated Challenges
Service Perspective Challenges
So How Do We Solve for So Many Rich, Diverse Lived Experiences?
One of our challenges was consolidating the diverse and complex lived experiences into a cohesive format for future workshops and for stakeholders to grasp the core of the problem.
We tried various diagrams and even straightforward lists of pain points, but none fully captured the depth and nuance of each individual’s story. Given the complexity of their experiences, we decided to visually represent each story as if you were a guest in their living rooms, offering a more immersive and personal view into their lives.
Systemic Lens
We also synthesized the research data into visual diagrams to help stakeholders get a clear and comprehensive view of the challenges.
The Model
Co-design Workshops
We conducted a total of three workshops, two with the delivery partners and one with people who had lived experiences. Two out of the three workshops were conducted online
Workshop with Partners & People with Lived Experiences
Alice and I crafted a segment of the workshop where participants were invited to reimagine a different experience for people using our model. We also incorporated some design thinking tools to test and refine the model together.
Goals
Share the challenges and themes that we’ve heard so far.
Share the model that we’ve developed from what we’ve heard.
Help us to test it, using some of the stories that we’ve captured.
Work with some of the ‘actors’ who will be involved in each system to explore how we’ll work together and the ‘factors’ that we’ll need to affect change to.
We want to enable the people we've been speaking to and learning from to understand how they can be in a position to start to feed into their ideas too
We want them to see the scale of what is needed and the part they need to play it what it means to be part of someone’s opportunities here
Delivery
Based on the insights gathered from our workshops and research, we developed a comprehensive learning program and a tailored set of tools to help delivery partners in effectively engaging with socially isolated individuals. These resources are designed to enhance their capacity to provide meaningful support, foster connections, and address the unique needs of those experiencing isolation.
We concluded that the learnings process had several stages that would help someone who is socially isolated to be confident and build connections. We divided the programme into the following:
Setting up the team
Learning about each other & Connect
Building Trust & Agency Together in peoples lives
Growing & Sustaining a new circle of care
Releasing Power
Learning Programme: Connect
Learnings
Creative Facilitation for Complex Issues: Facilitating workshops with individuals with lived experiences, and voluntary, community or social enterprise (VCSE) organizations taught me that creative facilitation methods are essential to getting to the heart of complex issues. We discovered that creating immersive, personal storytelling approaches enabled us to present nuanced issues more effectively to stakeholders.
Design Is Also So Much About Imagination and Innovation: This project required envisioning new kinds of support systems and fostering connections. It showed how creativity can shape impactful solutions.
Storytelling as a Tool for Change: Storytelling emerged as a powerful tool throughout the project. It allowed us to humanize the data and build empathy among stakeholders, making abstract challenges more relatable. This reinforced my belief in the power of storytelling as a means to drive understanding, engagement, and change.
Holistic, Human-Centered Approach: Shifting from a diagnostic lens to a more human-centered approach highlighted the need to engage people with curiosity and care. Understanding the human context rather than just solving problems allowed us to create solutions that were more empathetic and effective.
Designing for an Approach Rather Than a Service: Transitioning from a service-oriented mindset to one focused on designing an approach was a fascinating shift. While services often seem tangible and straightforward, creating a learning program required a deeper consideration of scalability, sustainability, and the potential for replication. This meant delving into the intricate details of the program's structure and flow, ensuring that it could be effectively implemented in various contexts.
