What Supports Independent Living? - Using a Design Approach

The project is one of only six national pioneers that have been approved for involvement in the Public Services by Design (PSbD) programme .

The PSbD programme is a new programme to inspire and enable design innovation in public services. The programme helps those involved in the design and commissioning of public services to look at the complexities of delivering a service from the perspective of those who use and provide it. Working in a collaborative and interactive way, design helps to develop an insightful, inclusive set of opportunities and solutions that effectively balance the needs of the user and the provider. Find out more about the programme here.

As part of the programme, management teams receive hands-on support and mentoring form the Design Council (approved design management experts with a track record in both the private and public sectors). Find out more about the work of the Design Council in PSbD here.

A group of project representatives including: staff who work in the exemplar services; NEIEP officers; local authority officers from Adult Social Care, Culture, Sport and Leisure services; and a representative from Sport England, have been involved in the PSbD programme.

Involvement in the programme included:

• A Design Introduction day which introduced participants to design methods and thinking.
• A Design Immersion Day which provided a "Deep Dive" into the project to explore the challenges, solutions, sketching and prototyping ideas before setting the scene for future focus.
• An Action Planning Session which allowed the group to prioritise and schedule the necessary design interventions, key mile-stones and performance indicators for the rest of WP2.

As a result of PSbD involvement, WP2a has been developed so that it uses a design approach. WP2a is exploring the benefits, barriers and solutions to accessing preventative services with the people who use and deliver them.

More information about the tools and design approach used in WP2a will be available from this site soon.