We talk a lot about resetting outcomes, co-designing practice and policy, and building new kinds of services and systems. But, really, it’s all about enabling people to do different: from the users (i.e. young people, older people) to the users’ networks (i.e. family members, community members) to the frontline practitioners to the managers to the policymakers.
We haven’t always done all that enabling very well. We have demonstrated how to enable the user and their network to do different through prototyping, but we haven’t necessarily enabled the frontline worker, their manager, and the policymaker to work different in tandem with one another.
So we’re trying something different in our family project at TACSI. We’ve added a third project lead, Carolyn, seconded from the agency in South Australia responsible for families and communities. Carolyn will work with us full-time for the first 9-month development phase, helping to translate our learnings to frontline practitioners, managers, and policymakers. Carolyn will also serve as the bridge to scale, staying on after the 9-month development phase to build momentum and the capacity of others to take the project forward.
Like most things we do, it’s an experiment. We’ve got a ton to learn from Carolyn; she is really our subject matter expert and our system guru. We’ve also got lots to share with Carolyn, like co-design and co-production. We really want to blend all of our experiences and skills together so we operate as a single entity rather than as three separate people. But, we also want to be an open team that brings others along for the journey. We’re going to run practice and policy action learning groups over the duration of the project so that we can help practitioners and policymakers transition to doing different at the same time that we are.
Last weekend, we had our first learning/sharing session. Carolyn, Chris and I met at McDonald’s for a morning to think about how to design an intentional family experience: at the look and feel of the space, the roles and processes, the messages and interactions, etc. We explored the difference between experiences that promote family functioning, and experiences that enable family thriving. It was a chance to begin to blend our collective expertise: Chris’ knowledge of service design, Carolyn’s knowledge of the family, and my knowledge of organizational systems and structures. (Of course, it was also a chance for me to eat hashbrowns! Yum!)
Monday is our first full day as a three-member team. Carolyn is going to run a sharing session on child development and family thriving. And then the three of us will go out to learn directly from families what thriving means to them. We have dinners scheduled with families every day next week. We’ll let you know how it all goes.
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