Connected Co-design
What if connection is also the critical ingredient in taking work from simple consultation to effective co-design?
“Now more than ever, people want community connection and through the process of getting together for the project we’re already building this”
When Hands Up Mallee began developing the project idea, the pandemic had not been on our horizon. With it, COVID-19 brought lockdowns and restrictions, reducing our opportunities to co-design and connect in person. But our early investment of time in building connection brought a determination to try new ways to work and keep the conversation flowing. We’ve watched a group of Red Cliffs parents and local service providers work together to build and maintain inclusive connections. From being adaptive about how and where we could meet within restrictions, splitting into smaller, staggered groups, and when we couldn’t meet in person, phone calls and text messages to stay in touch grew to a Facebook group where we could work together between meetings and through lockdowns.
How is this connection important to the work of Hands Up Mallee?
Connection is a key way of working for the Hands Up Mallee initiative. HUM work is designed to create connections beyond each individual session, workshop or project. These continued connections are critical in laying foundations for the long-term relationships needed to work together to create generational change.
What is connected co-design?
Connected co-design is central to our community’s vision - a connected community where families matter and children thrive. This vision started with the realization that our community had to work together, differently to shift the disadvantage many in our community face. Connection has become a key way of working for Hands Up Mallee and sits at the heart of our community-driven, collective impact initiative.
There are many different ways that people and organisations talk about co-design, it can range from consultations, shared roles in selective parts of a project or working collaboratively from project inception to finish. When HUM talks about connected co-design, we mean involving community members and partners early and working together through honest and robust collaborative processes.
What does connected co-design look like?
To better understand connected co-design let’s look at its role in the Ready Connect project in Red Cliffs, it is a great example of connected co-design that began early and has expanded beyond the project.
To achieve our aims it was important our process was not a limited version of co-design or simply consultation after decisions had been made, the community needed to be involved in building the project. It was also important the project was not something created outside of our community and brought in.
Building connections for co-design looked like:
Involving families as partners, early
Having upfront conversations about our hopes for the project, including families’ important role in deciding on our goals and how best to reach them
Creating trust by meeting people where they already go, coffee shops and parks, not places where we held power like an office
Showing up without uniforms and logos removing visual representations of power
Reaching out beyond existing relationships to people who aren’t usually heard
We began by building connections with families through our existing partnerships in the area. Using mutual connections helped us meet people who did not usually get a chance to be heard. It helped us create a sense of trust and allowed us to meet people where they are, not just where it was convenient. We met in coffee shops and parks, community spaces where we did not have ownership or authority over the space, places that families had a connection to and could feel comfortable sharing their experiences and ideas.
The initial Ready Connect workshops were held in family-friendly community spaces, near to places that families lived or places that were familiar to them. These workshops, run with the support of Clear Horizon, were designed to create culturally safe spaces and lay foundations for highly collaborative work and relationships. We asked participating services to dress casually, removing a corporate barrier to connection, and services approached this work with families as an equal partnership. Some workers brought their children along creating an opportunity to connect with families as parents not just professionals.
Families took part in shaping the project in many ways, importantly they also helped us to reach out beyond people we already knew to make sure many perspectives were offered.
How does it support change?
When Hands Up Mallee first began building relationships with families for the project, our focus was on in-person collaborative development, and the pandemic had not been on our horizon. With it, COVID-19 brought lockdowns and restrictions, reducing our opportunities to co-design and connect in person. But the early connections families had made brought a determination to try new ways to work and keep the conversation flowing even when we could not all be together. What started with phone calls and text messages to stay in touch grew to a Facebook group where we could work together between meetings and through lockdowns.
While the HUM team and services took a guiding role at the beginning of the project, this shifted as families rapidly grew in confidence to take a vital leadership role. Their leadership was formed with a strong understanding of the importance and value of connection. Families took action connecting beyond the project, advocating in and for their community; creating their own online spaces to better connect and support the Red Cliffs community and developing a print newsletter so that internet access was not a barrier to connection. The families’ ability to grow change beyond the project is based on their deep understanding that providing access for people with different needs allows for strong collaboration. As Aunty Colleen, a local Aboriginal Elder and participant said “we all live differently, we are individuals, we come together as one, we come together for the best in community.”
Amplifying voices that aren’t usually heard created perspective shifts for both services and families. As Bec another parent from the project said, “I have learnt to extend my focus beyond my core group by listening to other family’s stories.” Connection built through understanding and an early investment of time to work collaboratively ensured family and service partners were invested and had the determination needed to adapt and persevere through constantly shifting COVID restrictions and lockdowns.
These connections not only helped us work through difficult times they’ve expanded to create change beyond Ready Connect. Services have said that experiencing these connections has them rethinking how they work with the community. Families have been empowered to advocate for their community, through creating spaces on and offline to better connect the Red Cliffs community beyond the project.
“We all live differently, we are individuals, we come together as one. We come together for the best in community”