Three key learnings on how to change UK mental health systems for the better
…Salford, and Tameside & Glossop. Funded by The National Lottery Community Fund and inspired by a model developed in Lambeth, the ambitious programme set out to support places to radically…
What does it take to transform a place?
…they live, too. Place-based transformation programmes have abounded for 50 years: major fiscal transfers to places facing industrial decline, city-based regeneration, neighbourhood-led regeneration and Total Place to name but a…
Place-based transformation takes time. Lots of it.
most inspiring place-based transformations work with people and communities to understand what a good life looks like in that place, and remove the barriers to living it. They work with…
Why place-based transformation requires teams to work at all levels of the system
a place if the aspiration is for sustainable transformation. Place-based transformation requires many people to play many different roles that are aligned to their unique strengths and perspectives. Equally importantly,…
How to understand people and places
Different communities and generations often relate to places differently. Everyone will have their own story to tell, their own sense of the place in which they live. By tapping into…
Successful place-based transformation requires an inclusive strategy for local economic growth
…the notion of identity and place is thought by many to be a contributory factor in the Brexit debate. Even those places that thrived could still point to continued inequalities…
Why a bold, positive vision is essential for any successful transformation of place
On one level, to recommend starting with a vision sounds obvious. What transformation strategy doesn’t say that? And yet this goes against the grain of so many historic place-based transformation…
How ‘getting on with it’ can reap the rewards when it comes to place-based transformation
…place in a way that offers them value as well as you. But the value that just getting on with it offers should not be overlooked. Designing new futures Placed-based…
Christine Owen
…local communities, Christine is a place based innovation expert and designs and leads large scale place based innovation programmes across Scotland. These programmes are delivered with a range of local…
A place based approach to designing FDV Hub services in the Kimberley
…and Kalgoorlie (the Mara Pirni Healing Place) in 2020. In February 2021, the Western Australian Minister for the Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence (FDV) announced plans for additional ‘Hubs’…
PLACE: A case study
PLACE: Building a learning community without going to school is a case study part of a set of free, open-source publications, including a guide to project-based learning (written in partnership…
Cultural competency in the workplace
…sitting in a place of shame . I was embarrassed that I didn’t know much about our past as a country, about what it meant to work with Māori (let…
Rose Minshall
Rose is a Senior Innovation Consultant who is passionate about co-design, storytelling and supporting people to collaborate with purpose. Her work takes a place-based approach – which is about understanding…
People power: working together to make a difference
…elected them in the first place. Accountability often becomes diluted: politicians get away with poor decision-making and vested interests, which in turn leads to an increasing dissatisfaction from the general…
Steph Gamauf
…Devon ICB in growing system-wide, place-based approaches to tackling obesity and is currently supporting Wigan Council as a Learning Coach in the development of a community-led family hub. Steph’s work…
From programmes to people
…people-driven emergency response that was iterative, generative and responsive to local wisdom. The retreat of formal systems and bureaucracy enabled risk-confident and distributed leadership to take place on the frontline….
Working in a crisis: what Greater Manchester learnt about how we work
…nourished across a place. The lines that marked the limits of roles and organisations were pulled apart, and new, people, family and place-centred roles emerged. As a colleague from children’s…
How to learn your way forward when you don’t know what the next step will bring
Taking action towards realising a big, new vision for transforming the places in which we live is not an exact science. There is no set path to follow. Lots of…
Ending and Beginning Well
…a nutshell, the PPR team worked to pioneer new place based approaches to driving change on complex, systemic challenges. Through these place based transformation programmes we are starting to learn…
Levelling up: bricks and mortar were never going to be enough
…infrastructure with more human, social, cultural and place-based outcomes. Innovation Unit has worked in place-based transformation for 15 years. Our programmes lead to better outcomes for communities and we know…
How do you design a structure for partnering across the NHS, local authorities and community groups?
to take include networking with other places, taking a long-term relational approach to influencing, and putting structures in place to support this work. Synergy vector created by pch.vector – www.freepik.com…
How Greater Manchester rapidly adapted systems and processes to meet people’s needs
…themselves out’, someone in one of our workshops suggested – and were replaced with often ‘makeshift’ solutions. It wasn’t about ‘who is in charge and who should make the decisions’…
The state of social housing in Western Australia: Ideas and innovations for the future (part 2 of 2)
…working and meeting (Lokal mittendrin). The house is first and foremost a meeting place for the public. The restaurant Lokal Mittendrin, is an ideal place for meeting the residents. This…
Reflecting on a challenging year
…the eye of the storm. Like many others, we produced learning on the power of crisis-led innovation to create laser-like shared purpose in a place, to take down the existing…
Supporting Workplace Mental Health: learning from Living Well
…this year’s World Mental Health Day theme is mental health in the workplace, we wanted to share our learning from more than 5 years of co-designing, spreading and embedding Living…
The opportunity of a generation
…or cancel virtual appointments. The NHS Framework – right time, right place Some commentators, including campaigning mental health charities, may resist some of these changes, including the closure of hospital…
Why existing and emerging local leaders need space and confidence to fail, grow and thrive
…6. A blooming success Great place-based leadership means helping the garden to bloom, accepting that as a leader you nurture, support and protect local places to develop, fail, grow and…
Learning from a crisis: how we need ambitious and enabling political leadership
…right places to co-produce solutions. The question now is what it will take to embed the best of these newly realised ways of working for the long term. Earlier this…
Family Hubs: what are we learning about designing forward differently
…to feel welcomed and accepted. This then shifted the idea of Family Hubs as a place where services could be delivered, to places that focus on creating safety for families….
Talking to young people in Lambeth
…young people living in Lambeth, aged between 16 and 21, to understand how this period has affected their wellbeing and consider what might be put in place to support them….
Cath Dillon
Cath leads a portfolio of large scale innovation projects across Innovation Unit’s children’s social care and health and social care consultancy work in a Place based context. Cath also leads…
Tom Beresford
Tom Beresford is a public sector innovation and change specialist working with partners passionate about the renewal of places and communities. He has 10 years’ experience of research, systems innovation…
Lizzie Cain
…the sharing of learning across sectors, settings and place. With an academic background in social policy and a decade working for charities including The Reader Organisation, MS Society and BookTrust,…
Stacey Hemphill
…the Lambeth Living Well Network. As Head of Practice, Stacey continues her work supporting place-based teams and systems to develop and innovate practice, championing person-centred, strengths-based, trauma-informed, and collaborative approaches,…
Aimee Hadrup
…of our work in New Zealand. Recently, Aimee has led capability building work with Healthy Families NZ, a large scale place-based initiative that brings together community leadership to tackle rising…
Mike Rees
…joining the Innovation Unit Mike’s work has mainly focused on the development of the Innovation Unit’s policy on ‘place’ and the implementation of that policy work. He has also continued…
Emma Price
…learning across place-based systems. Emma has led work to co-design a Live Well support offer for people with dementia, bringing together NHS GM, cross-sector partners and the voluntary sector to…
Alessandra Tombazzi
Alessandra is a Service Designer with a focus on connecting people, places and processes across complexity to catalyse systemic change. She uses her practice to visualise services, systems and the…
Savannah Fishel
…overseas which place intergenerational relationships at the centre of their design. Prior to Innovation Unit Savannah has held positions in politics, both within parliament and for an external campaigns group,…
Christina Cornwell
…and policy in central government and regulation. Most recently, Christina was the Executive Director with responsibility for Nesta’s portfolio of social, digital and place-based innovation programmes in health. Christina is…
A reflection on the second Collective Change Kōrero – what’s emerging?
…different places and sectors and we have a collective sense of the complexity. We are noticing and are inspired by activity that is creating change, while also noticing the scale…
A perfect storm: What the end of the rental moratorium says about the state of social housing in Western Australia (part 1 of 2)
…job, or maintain independence in older age. For many people, a sudden or unplanned change in circumstances can place them at risk or lead to housing stress and homelessness. These…
3 Ideas for Fostering
…UK. In a time of increased pressure to recruit and retain within the sector, support and supervision needs to place an active focus on the wellbeing of the foster carer,…
We need more and different perspectives, skills and experience to meet the challenges ahead
…for our future as an organisation. In a world of stark inequalities, big social challenges, and ‘bright spots’ illuminating new possibilities, where are the places, how and with whom should…
Family Hubs: maximising the potential of parent panels
…places and holistic needs, instead of putting the same services in new places and expecting different things to happen. The development and delivery of hubs is now in full swing…
What Does it Mean to Thrive?
…from a rich variety of perspectives. Our panel included experts on politics, economics, learning, poverty and place, and we were joined by innovators from across the UK who are growing…
What the Voice teaches us about co-design
…and local language interpreting services). Up to 100 delegates were invited to each First Nations Regional dialogue, selected according to the following split: 60% of places for First Nations/traditional owner…
Transforming care experiences for young people in Sheffield
Innovation is not always about creating something new. In fact, in the public sector, innovation is more often about taking what works in another context or place, and adapting it…
A vision for change
inequalities between places has never been clearer. Yet we are only just starting to understand what it will really take to have a transformative effect on people and places, and…
Learning to Thrive:- Special Event
…and place. We will hear from: Valerie Hannon, Co-founder, Innovation Unit Valerie is co-founder of Innovation Unit and a thought leader in education innovation. Valerie will discuss the changing purpose…
Takiwā Waihangā – Our Māori identity
…our place in Aotearoa, it acknowledges our commitment to work in partnership with Māori, and the work we do to enable the people of Aotearoa to thrive and participate fully…
Improving outcomes for care leavers with prison sentences
…after leaving prison, requiring support to find a stable home, income and place in the community in order for them to lead meaningful, positive futures. One of the main challenges…
A vision for change publication
At Innovation Unit, our vision is for a world in which all people belong and contribute to thriving societies. We have worked on place-based transformation of public services for 20…
Dear mental health system: can we help?
…you straightaway and booked a place. And I would have felt grateful. Believe me, I’m not annoyed with the people who wrote the letter, far from it. I’m angry with…
The Berkana Institute’s ‘Two Loops’
…of a paradigm and the rise of a new one in its place. The Berkana Institute’s ‘Two Loops’ model tries to capture how systems change or paradigms shifts can happen…
Lateral leadership and custodianship – a legacy of Covid?
…to connect up the different parts of the local system in places – with an emphasis on listening and brokering and enabling and co-developing new custodianship-informed, place-focused governance arrangements. This…
The Power Shift Framework
…building take place. How is it being used? There are some great examples of working across levels in the Systems Sanctuary report, but I want to share a few from…
We need new solutions for sustainable recovery: Innovation Unit response to 2021 Budget
…and life chances of people in places that have had a raw deal over decades. Evidence gathered over many years about the success or otherwise of place-based transformation points to…
Falling through the gaps – new research into care leavers’ experiences
…opportunity to make a real difference to care leavers’ lives and help them to rehabilitate, but this wasn’t always used effectively. “I need a permanent place to stay so I…
Healthy High Streets Challenge
…challenge is taking place on the high streets of each locality: West Green and High Road in Haringey, Walworth Road and East Street in Southwark, and Clapham Road and around…
Radical evolution in UK education
…goals’ for society (minimum ingredient 1). Get rid of the single word approach. Replace it with a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the school. This would enable parents…
Rochdale Borough Council: A trauma-informed system
…we have applied our expertise in place-based systems transformation to support Rochdale’s Children and Young People’s Partnership in embedding trauma-informed practice across children’s and families’ services with a view to…
Patients must be at the heart of the NHS – and of innovation
…within the NHS that truly fulfills the Constitution’s principle to place patients at its heart. 2. Involving patients beyond design and evaluation can drive more sophisticated scaling strategies For NIA…
Innovation through collaboration: Co-designing mental health systems
…need to invest in building a radically different environment of collaboration in our places across the UK.”Living Well report May 2023 The project built on the existing Thrive Welcome Team…
How we’re trying to bring anti racism to our practice and project work
…As an organisation, we’ve also looked at what we can put in place for colleagues to support our anti racist journey. These include: race awareness training for the whole IU…
Trust Takes Time: lessons for VCSE organisations partnering with the NHS
Over the past nine months, Innovation Unit has been supporting 14 voluntary and community sector organisations to establish place-based partnerships with NHS organisations focused on combating health inequalities. Using a…
What’s the Endgame?
…such as establishing new infrastructure to facilitate collaboration between the voluntary and health sectors. Once these infrastructures are in place and fulfilling their purpose, it is crucial for projects to…
Who Evaluates the Evaluation? Grassroots knowledge and experience of evaluation
…reflecting on the evaluation itself. Committing to consistent and in depth self-reflection can help to ensure that any evaluation which takes place is meaningful to both the programme and the…
Dear Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
…between adult and adolescent mental health services, and for the design of Hubs for young people to be done in partnership with young people and their families in local places…
Learning Live: nine months alongside Health Equality Development Grantees
…activity has culminated in our new storybook which captures what our grantees learned and the approaches they used in real time – and provides deeply relevant content for other place-based…
George Aye: Doing Design Differently
Taking place across Australia and Aotearoa in August and September 2023, the Doing Design Differently tour invites design practitioners, leaders, academics, and students to engage critically and constructively with questions…
Driven by Data
…place-based institutions can use measurement at different times and in different ways to achieve the greatest social and economic impact for residents. The tool includes case studies, further resources and…
Health in community: VCFSE-led partnerships tackling health inequalities
…they play a critical role in prevention, helping people to stay well in the first place. With the scope to deliver services holistically, they are also crucial to addressing the…
Preventing gendered violence: what we have learnt from young people
…What is primary prevention? Primary prevention is about creating positive cultures where the risk of gendered violence doesn’t arise in the first place. Primary prevention means addressing the underlying drivers…
Always Hope: Transforming the lives of care experienced young adults in the UK justice system
…and coordination of personal support networks Appropriate preparation for release – meaning that no care experienced young adult leaves prison without somewhere to stay and support in place Housing that…
Outside the box: rethinking NHS spaces to combat inequality
…Foundation and NHS England. Since launching we’ve brought together large place-based public sector organisations to explore how they can benefit the local community with many of our participants focusing on…
The Development Curve
…‘Degrowth’ movement, which hopes to displace the goal of endless economic growth and focus on the radical changes we need to make to bring our economies in line with the…
Aboriginal Wisdom
…sustainably in relationship with place. Here in Australia, where Aboriginal peoples lived sustainably for over 60,000 years before colonisation, there is so much to learn from Indigenous wisdom about how…
Meadows’ Leverage Points
…better. In 1997, Donella Meadows, a leading figure in (modern, Western) systems thinking, published a paper called ‘Places to intervene in a system (in increasing order of effectiveness)’. The paper…
Commissioning Innovation
…about what their funds will support. Overly directive commissioning stifles innovation by limiting experimentation with new practices or adaptation of an approach to the needs of a specific place or…
Against the Odds: Successfully scaling innovation in the NHS
…themselves, but from policymakers and system leaders in the NHS, who create the environment in which scaling takes place, and who can provide the support needed to make it happen.”David…
Learning from a crisis: webinar
…the debate. Contributions from the panel Sarah describes Innovation Unit’s recent work around place-based transformation. Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham and CEO of the London Borough of Barking &…
Working at Innovation Unit might be your next big adventure
…innovation programmes that identify, nurture and help to spread innovation, to adopt and adapt innovations that have already been shown to be successful and enable place-based transformation that really sticks….
Disruptive learning in and from a crisis
…for rapid and potentially seminal innovation: A mission-driven unity of purpose. A humanitarian focus on places and people and their needs. A permissive and risk confident culture. The liberation and…
Collaborating for greater impact across the UK public sector
Through a new cross-sector collaboration, we have been awarded places on a government framework for Management Consultancy that gives UK public sector organisations direct access to in-depth expertise and support…
How edtech can transform learning for the better
…all–a place intentionally designed to serve and embrace every individual child in a richly diverse community. “Summit Learning” is a personalised, project-based learning (PBL) curriculum that puts Summit students “in…
Single mothers’ journeys reveal a broken housing system
…Mothers saw turning to formal support services as a last resort, and if they were treated poorly or didn’t meet support criteria the first time and place they asked for…
How Social Innovation is Deeply Māori
…and with Māori, and the work that takes place to build our capability around bi-cultural practice. I believe social innovation embodies my first whakatauki: “E hara taku toa i te…
Three new board members join Innovation Unit
…to the team driving their mission. I’m particularly looking forward to helping place innovation at the heart of improvement in public service and showing how proven innovations that deliver better…
Imagining a future system for mental health
…community and place. Through today’s workshop, we set out to test and develop our understanding of the current system; learn about some of the most exciting innovations of the past…
The Power of Story
…to leadership in the first place. This is why it is so important to gather as many stories as one can. For example, the lived experience of ‘providers’, often neglected…
Redesigning the mental health system around people and communities
…community models as described by the Framework and brought to life in Living Well systems are the strategically important place to focus local efforts of recovery and renewalI have written…
A Journey to Recovery: shifts in thinking about women’s refuges (part 1)
…have when supporting women and children, and place service users at the centre of the service. In practice, this means having flexibility in the approaches to supporting women and children…
Fund local innovation to tackle local inequality
…to be successful requires new and innovative thinking. “The history of place-based transformation is littered with examples of infrastructure investment in places that do not deliver great outcomes for its…
A collaborative approach to innovation and living well could transform the way we deliver care
…and places of working. We could create far better places to live and age well, but to do so requires us to take a whole system approach to change and…
Improving outcomes for children & young people by spreading innovation
…place to grow up in. In West Berkshire, a restorative practice approach to emotional health and wellbeing has seen a 43% reduction in the tier 3 child and adolescent mental…
Collective Changemaker Kōrero
…for everyone to hear from each other, notice what is taking place, why and how. The group didn’t claim to be representative of the full diversity of actors but it…
Engaging in work that matters
…quarter of socio-economic disadvantage and only 5% are in the top quarter. It is a dynamic, diverse and incredibly rewarding place to work. The case for radical change in education…
What Next?
Across multiple disciplines and fields, as organisations and as individuals, we seem to be asking ourselves the same simple question — what next? From politics to place-making, economics to education,…
Thriving families need thriving communities
…points to the need for and potential impact of place-based and whole-systems approaches, which would replace the Troubled Families programme with a strategy to create thriving families and thriving communities….
5 things we’ve learnt about play in Aotearoa (so far)
…regions share a deep pride of place and easy access to natural play spaces. However, each region also has unique cultural and geographic features which shape the opportunities available and…
Turning the tide on tragedy
…a feature. I argue that we are mistaken when we falsely oppose the world of communities (commonly characterized as places where relationships happen), and the world of services (which we…
Social innovation is a serious business. Seriously.
…platforms for local people to come together to identify and solve the problems of their place, these are not simply technical solutions to big problems. They involve a rewiring of…
Context is King
…skills and dispositions best prepare young people for a future that is uncertain. Putting EdTech in its place – rethinking outcomes and learning for the future If we’re serious about…
Remind me — what is it that you do?
…in the place and with the people of their choosing Community-based models for good mental health that keep people with mental health conditions well Networks of support for people with…
From Finland to Torbay — 3 Inspirational Mental Health Innovations
…mentally healthy places. It’s an example of innovations that come from, and are given life by, the everyday environments in which people ordinarily live, work, buy, share and socialise. The…
The Case for Change: No Wrong Door shows the way
…edge of care on its head. Rather than wait months for appointments in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar specialists, young people are offered short, medium or respite stays in No Wrong…
How to get the schools we need? Rethink their purpose
…be deliberately designed to address the four – utterly connected – levels at which humans need to thrive. These are: globally – our place on the planet societally – communities,…
Reform of NHS England: Innovation Unit’s view
…services and residential or foster placements. It’s not uncommon, for example, for young people to be sent to ‘out of area’ placements far from their friends and family. This can…
When my dad was dying, they forgot to ask him how he wanted to live
…care services, for better access to pain control, for better planning. All of these help – no-one should die in pain, in a place they did not choose, and without…
To Intervene or Not to Intervene?
…professionals can deal with some of the underlying factors that increase parental conflict — like not having a suitable place to live, or significant financial worries. Successfully developing the workforce…
Thriving Communities
When people are given the power to shape a vision for their community, and the resources to make it happen, they grasp it. But when we talk about public services, this kind of agency is rarely part of the equation.
Health Anchors Learning Network
The Health Anchors Learning Network (HALN) is a UK-wide network for people responsible for, or interested in, anchor approaches in health to share and learn from each other.