…we tackle some very big systemic problems with the way mental health services are designed, organised and delivered. FALSE CHOICES AND GAPS IN THE CURRENT SYSTEM Our team came up…

designed from the service user perspective. There is not enough asset–based design, genuine co-production or shared decision-making. Clinical, biomedical models emphasise management of ill health rather than hope and recovery….

…can be found at https://www.wa.gov.au/government/document-collections/two-new-family-and-domestic-violence-womens-refuges-co-design-findings Caution Some people may find parts of this content confronting or distressing. Recommended support services include: 1800 Respect – 1800 737 732 Lifeline – 13…

The event explored how to adapt and adopt North Yorkshire County Council’s No Wrong Door model, an asset–based approach to working with young people with complex needs who are in…

…agencies to coordinate the range of available services as well as providing case managers and councillors to assist residents approach self-sufficiency and ‘housing stability’. According to data from Transition Projects,…

…based’ and that solutions don’t have to be ‘services’. It has no procedures for gatekeeping, managing demand or categorising ‘service users’ by level of need or risk. Indeed, barbers in…

and value for money in public services; from supporting people to manage their own long-term conditions, to the development of new mental health services that are designed and run by…

…social determinants of health (the wider conditions people live and work in). Embedded in – and so trusted by – local communities, they are able to take an asset–based approach,…

What is a Family Hub? Family Hubs have been a key priority for all leaders working in Children’s Services since they were announced by the Department for Education (DfE) back…

…rules of the game for a while, to forge new partnerships across sectors and services. The question was always going to be: what will it take to embed and develop…

…towards continuity or incremental reform – a new tender will go out, mostly the same organisations will win contracts, and mostly the same kind of services will keep being delivered….

…of the Asset Based Care Best Practice Guide that we have produced for the Greater Manchester Public Health Network. The guide proposes that an ‘asset based’ model of primary care…

…to someone else. As part of Innovation Unit’s work to develop an asset–based approach to children’s social care in Wigan, we ran a series of workshops to share professionals’ knowledge…

…your work? We’d love to hear your thoughts and pātai/questions. Or, if you’d like somewhere to start, you can download this booklet here. Watch Rachel’s and Kataraina’s talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY7u8M_QCos&t=43s…

positive impact that Project Based Learning can have when embedded in a wider strategy for innovative teaching and learning. This research shows that Project Based Learning is clearly not a…

Understanding why things haven’t worked is incredibly helpful. For instance Adoption and spread of innovation in the NHS offers an analysis of relative spending on innovation and adoption, which delivers…

…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….

…to adopt new ways of working. But not every successful innovation has an organisation behind it that can fund or deliver this level of support to adopters. CREATING THE RIGHT…

…country’s eduLab–schools that are tasked with developing ICT innovations so that they can be adopted by schools across the system–has adopted better and more advanced data technology to help in…

…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…

…supported and evaluated 53 projects, with a further £200m in the pipeline, that are improving thousands of some of the most vulnerable children’s lives. In Australia communities of teachers and…

…Children and Youth Care made the bold decision to redesign the way it provides out-of-home care services in December 2019. Now in mid-2021, Parkerville has embarked on an ambitious journey,…

…working with partner organisations to support each individual’s healing process for as long as they need. Women and children need to be able to access services, answer questions, and create…

…asset–based services for young people in and on the edge of care The common thread running through all of the stories that were shared is that we must raise our…

…Too often we hear about brilliant initiatives, services, or innovation teams who do great work in pockets of organisations — but the core business or offer of that organisation stays…

…want to challenge the system to get better outcomes for young people who fall into the cycle of reoffending. To work with Innovation Unit on the pilot , contact jessie.ben-ami@innovationunit.org…

…contributory role that people’s strengths, social networks and wider community assets play in good mental health. People will be supported by multi-disciplinary teams and wider networks of voluntary organisations to…

In our last blog we outlined the opportunity that Family Hubs provide for ambitious and future focused authorities to think differently about how services are designed, shifting to think about…

…on his own, but this was not considered a realistic option by either his family or the services involved. At that point, Peter was matched with a named social worker….

How do you embark on a journey of system-wide change to your children’s social care services in the midst of a pandemic? At Innovation Unit (IU), we’re proud to work…

…well, and for re-defining and innovating our models of care. Current vs future models of care Now Future Paternalistic model of care Asset–based Care by the building and minute Care…

…from the vision, plot a transition pathway to get there Generate tangible goals that provide milestones along the transition pathway Pull together ‘ecologies of projects’ to work in alignment towards…

advocate on the individual’s behalf, linking with a range of services, professionals and organisations. Whilst the pilot does not sanction any new powers for social workers, it gives us a…

Earlier today the Education Endowment Fund (EEF) published a report setting out the findings of research into Project Based Learning (PBL) undertaken by Innovation Unit with Durham University. Despite some…

…doing it. Unfortunately, this plethora of noise is often not helped by an increasingly divisive debate within our own profession. Some argue for the need to implement only research-based approaches…

…are summarised in our model for scale , and have come from our experience of taking fantastic innovations to scale elsewhere (for example in children’s social care ), and our…

…learn from them and the work has spawned other diffusion organizations – the Buck Institute supports robust models of project-based learning to spread; Expeditionary Learning is now EL Education ,…

…doing their research to be DrDoctor’s first adopter. Committed work with patients to deeply understand their needs is in itself an adoption mechanism, and models a way of creating change…

…week trial 50% of choices from the children’s menus were from the healthier menu, and feedback from customers about the taste of the new options was positive. In Lambeth we…

…conversation about what the future of play could look like in your region, neighbourhood, and whānau. For more information about this kaupapa, please get in touch with Emily Preston: emily.preston@innovationunit.org…

…to commit to adopting the innovations but become more involved over time. Active engagement is key. For example, involving potential early adopters in adapting and evolving new practices through activities…

initiatives when well-meaning organisations seek to work in their space. While we would love to influence how other organisations create opportunities for community leadership, our greatest hope is that changemakers…

…know that something significant in the organisational norms is different. And it is changes to organisational architecture — the culture, the structure, and the organisation of time across the whole…

…asking, and listening to uncomfortable answers. See and hear it it all We often seek feedback after making decisions, but this means that we naturally ignore feedback that doesn’t neatly…

…creation of ‘artefacts’ to demonstrate learning and skills feels like the sane and common sense approach. It’s even penetrating policy work, with states adopting performance-based assessment strategies with the support…

…initiatives and a broader movement for change are intertwined to become even more powerful. Secondly, BGV help innovators to improve public services, or impact on the public good from outside…

…ministerial event last week, ‘You would intervene if you saw parents smoking in front of their children — and the data on the negative impact of parental conflict on children’s…

…is complex and this is partly because so many different organisations are charged with providing support; from local government to children’s social care, the criminal justice system to health, and…

To those working in children’s services the ‘Troubled Families Story’ is a familiar one: major government initiative inspired by new evidence about ‘what works’; celebrated as a panacea for the…

…by definition rigid) industrial set-up. Neither tends to end well. The English education context is just not conducive to innovation: based on a narrow, inflexible and unadaptive definition of success,…

…care system are a given. Siblings Together is the only UK based organisation focused on promoting positive contact between siblings across the whole care system. Innovation does not have to…

…the huge issues that feed it in new and positive ways — inequality, racism and global migration to name but a few. It’s not enough to have some social impact….

…also aim to influence a growing movement for change in the way we think about and behave around death and dying. Follow us @_BetterEndings or get in touch at betterendings@innovationunit.org….

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. So far so familiar. In…

…positive relationships across and within projects. Buddy scheme Buddy schemes are a proven way to boost social connections in organisations and foster skill-sharing especially across health leader roles and partnered…

…Care Team, where they help to capture and reflect and/or centre the perspectives and aspirations of the child and their family, to feed into personalised care planning and decision-making. Both…

…my own memories as project administrator and council officer. So if there are any inaccuracies with dates and numbers, then please forgive me. At that time Islwyn had around 6,500…

…hinder spread, and building the underlying capability of NHS organisations to learn and adopt new ideas. Improving how we replicate innovations at scale requires action on a range of fronts,…

…protocols in new adopter sites – a more cultivating, gardening notion of change. There exists at worst a gap in understanding and at best an underestimation of the role culture…

…celebrate indeed. Meet key members of our team in Australia: Keren Caple (Chief Executive), Martin James (Head of Innovation Projects) and Emma Scott (Senior Lead — Youth, Families & Communities)….

management and sharing of risk across partners, from children’s social care to health and police. For colleagues who’ve worked in children’s homes before, No Wrong Door’s immediate access to professional…

…collective have co-designed a Melbourne Doughnut adapted for their local context, and are now convening collaborations around big, bold ‘beacon projects’ aligned with the doughnut; for example, to make the…

…help design better futures instead. Why is it important? Leading design projects that have real impacts on people’s lives can be both exciting and a bit terrifying. There’s a huge…

…and external spaces tended to seek and value mentorship, community connections and tapping into their own creativity rather than accessing mental health services. Those young people already connected into social…

…Education Services , it’s critical to rethink learning outcomes and make explicit the high aspirations we have for all students alongside the expectations we have that schools will be future…

…services meet the challenges that families are facing in today’s changing climate. On 30 September 2021, Innovation Unit ANZ hosted the second event of our three-part Social Innovation Learning Series,…

…products, services, strategies and organisations that work to address unmet social needs. It is not just about reaching an outcome, it’s also about developing capability within organisations, communities and individuals…

…at risk of taking their own lives. This needs to include imaginative relationship and community-based models of care that can spot individuals at risk and cradle them through bad times….

This is the second of two blog posts based on Rachel Knight’s and Kataraina Davis’ talk at the 2019 UX New Zealand conference. You can watch the talk here. My…

…familial ‘adoptive grandparents’ ‘they’re like my grandkids’ etc. COVID19 exacerbated the loss of identity and purpose that can come with ageing. This was particularly stark in situations where older people…

…else, migrants welcome vs migrants leave etc. We are asymmetric. Many of these big divisions are more cultural and less class based. And along each of these dividing lines –…

#2: The ‘Development Curve’ What does it say? The significance of this picture can take a little while to sink in. This research mapped 150+ countries based on social thresholds…

…a concert if you wonder about mixed-age learning. Why have we retained so exclusively the subject-based curriculum, when no tasks in the real world segregate knowledge or its applications in…