Three key learnings on how to change UK mental health systems for the better
…grown, and Innovation Unit is now supporting Joined Up Care Derbyshire, Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership and York’s Connecting our City Partnership to adapt and adopt Living Well systems. Celebrating…
Simon Harger-Forde
the Asia Pacific region. Innovate Change completed over 50 projects using social innovation methodologies that included social marketing projects to reduce drug and alcohol harm and driving related injuries, building…
Against the Odds: Successfully scaling innovation in the NHS
…Foundation The full report, including more detailed recommendations for innovators, adopters and system leaders, is now available on the Innovation Unit website – https://www.innovationunit.org/projects/against-the-odds — — — Notes to editors:…
Innovation Unit Australia is hiring!
to lead social innovation projects and our strategic design practice in Australia. As an organisation, we have adopted service design as a practice. We are now looking for a leader…
Jethro Sercombe
Service and Strategic Design capacity to projects within homelessness, family domestic violence, out of home care, youth services and mental health. His most recent work has included supporting projects in…
Helping you adapt and adopt innovation in children’s social care
and adopt No Wrong Door. If you would like to know more about the support available for adapting No Wrong Door to your context, please contact Cath Dillon – cath.dillon@innovationunit.org….
10 creatives to help bring your stories to life
…her instagram and more of her work here. Charlotte’s ‘I WANT TO THRIVE’ Digital Illustration. Image from: https://www.charlotteallingham.com/portraits Graham Tipene If you’ve been to Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), chances are you’ve…
Dione Joseph
…connection, creation and collaboration amongst those of African and Afro-Caribbean heritage in Aotearoa and is a graduate of the New Zealand Leadership Programme (2019). More info on www.dionejoseph.com and www.blackcreativesaotearoa.com…
2023 Australian Good Design Awards
…the Good Design Index and browse through the 2023 winners, https://good-design.org/good-design-index/?yr=2023 For enquiries about this model, please contact Parkerville Children and Youth Care at together@parkerville.org.au or Innovation Unit at teamanz@innovationunitanz.org…
Janice Nicholson
…Door model both within North Yorkshire County Council, then more widely to other local authority areas as part of an ‘adopt and adapt’ and sector led improvement approach. This incorporated…
Charlotte Billington
…in their co-design & creation, development of an ambitious multi-disciplinary approach to Alternative Provision, and a large scale adopt and adapt programme across the North West to drive regional innovation…
Frances Flaxington
…She was part of the team assisting local authorities in Greater Manchester to adopt and adapt No Wrong Door for children and young people in or on the edge of…
Aimee Hadrup
…of our work. She works with bold organisations, sectors and communities to help realise their ambitions for achieving social change at scale. She is driven to build capability of the…
IU expands its leadership capacity in New Zealand and Australia
…social care, learning & schools, healthy lives, early years and mental health. Interviews and case studies can be arranged. Please contact: Keren Caple at keren.caple@innovationunit.org or +61 400 140 277….
Anna Antonijevic
…transformation. Anna specialises in leadership development, design, delivery, and evaluation of education projects across domestic and international contexts, including Australia, the UAE, the Pacific and Papua New Guinea – where…
Zoe O’Neill
…as anti-discrimination work and racial equity. Her work is characterised by a deep curiosity and creativity of thought, which she brings to all projects she works on. Zoe has spent…
Christina Cornwell
…health system, including by adapting and adopting the principles of Living Well UK. She is sponsoring work to redesign the NHS Volunteer Responders Programme and is working with UCLPartners to…
Tom Beresford
…and place-based projects, working with public service providers, charities, councils, international agencies and civic organisations. Tom is an Associate at Innovation Unit, working on their international education portfolio, including the…
Cath Dillon
sponsors our Early Family Help Trailblazer programme as well as our Living Well Community Mental Health work. Cath has led the adoption and adaption of No Wrong Door across six…
Emma Smale
…care, health, arts and culture, and for large and small community organisations to the roles of facilitator, freelance consultant, researcher and campaigner. Her long-standing passion for challenging gaps and siloes…
Tally Daphu
…passionate about developing learning experiences and co-desiging innovations to address complex social problems and inequalities. Tally works across a range of Innovation Unit projects, from research and discovery through to…
Siobhan Edwards
…Social Care, including the DfE’s Strengthening Families, Protecting Children Programme where she works closely with North Yorkshire County Council on the adoption and adaptation of No Wrong Door, as well…
Aviv Katz
…Aviv leads the Innovation Unit’s Design Academy, a one-year course for emerging leaders in design-led innovation methodologies. Other projects have included research and concept development for the new build of…
Scaling innovation: a collective endeavour
…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…
New research helps reimagine education
…care, learning and schools, healthy lives, early years and mental health.www.innovationunit.org About Reimagining Education Together: The report explores the growing evidence for why change is needed, the consensus building around…
Mission accomplished? Not quite.
…of what it takes to adopt and adapt new ideas, and take them to scale for greatest impact. We are a relatively small organisation with a small board, so you…
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….
CCG Innovation Fund wins patient experience award
…health and care services smoother. Since 2014, the Innovation Fund has supported 27 projects with £800,000 of funding. Projects are tested on a small scale and supported to develop a…
New solutions, impact at scale: innovation for the many not the few
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 Unit appointed to the Aotearoa New Zealand All of Government (AoG) Consultancy Panel
…teamanz@innovationunit.org PHONE: +64 9 378 7642 (New Zealand) MOBILE: +64 21 805 075 (Jade) Ngā mihi nui, Jade Tang-Taylor Director of Innovation and Partnerships Innovation Unit jade.tang-taylor@innovationunit.org …
Health in community: VCFSE-led partnerships tackling health inequalities
…to update these over the coming months, as the programme progresses, so watch this space! To find out more about the programme or Innovation Unit’s work, please contact Lizzie: lizzie.cain@innovationunit.org…
George Aye: Doing Design Differently
…ask your burning questions. A keynote presentation and panel will be followed by a sundowner, the chance to connect with others over light refreshments. https://events.humanitix.com/using-design-for-good-with-george-aye 🧠 Gut Check Workshop Monday…
IU on the radio
…alcohol consumption here: The Fix: Cutting down our drinking Find out more about how we use creativity and innovation in order to create new solutions to complex social issues: https://www.innovationunit.org/projects/…
Ka Mua, Ka Muri
…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…
Innovation Unit ANZ is recruiting!
Innovation and People to set up a time for a conversation martin.james@innovationunit.org 027 3599394. Send the following to teamanz@innovationunit.org by 12 noon NZT on Friday 14 January 2022: a CV…
Growing a movement of Radical Caring with community and grassroots projects across London
…conditions and permission for Radical Caring in our organisations We each have different levels of tuning in and attending to our own needs. It was observed that in some organisational…
Transition Design
…the shared visions you’ve crafted, deliberately creating the conditions for each other’s success Learn, reflect and adapt both projects and the visions they’re aimed at over time It sounds simple…
Living Well UK programme announced
…£9 billion to projects that improve the lives of millions of people. Its UK Portfolio supports UK-wide projects to test and grow bold ideas that put people in the lead…
Children’s social care innovation programme
…provoking ideas and insights from the Innovation Programme, drawing on the evaluations of Round One projects, IP learning events and on-the-ground experiences of projects. Interim Learning Report (2016) Authors: Spring…
Sarah Ward
is supporting NHS providers in England to build knowledge, skills and confidence to create the cultures and mechanisms to successfully adapt and adopt innovations in their health and care systems….
Jahaan Abdurahman
…Network team, where she facilitates a growing understanding of how NHS organisations can effectively adopt and implement anchor missions. Before joining Innovation Unit, Jahaan had diverse career experiences. Her early…
Innovating our way through a pandemic: the Strengthening Families, Protecting Children programme
…to adopt and adapt their innovation. In March 2020, IU, alongside Mutual Ventures and the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), joined the partnership delivering the programme. Drawing on our…
Transforming care experiences for young people in Sheffield
– what we, at Innovation Unit, call ‘adopt and adapt’. One such project is the adoption and adaptation of North Yorkshire County Council’s ‘No Wrong Door’ (NWD) model of children’s…
Reform of NHS England: Innovation Unit’s view
…ideas, and then spread and scale those ideas; we then help others adopt and adapt innovations that have been successful elsewhere; and we play the role of learning partner that…
Christine Owen
…with organisations and public systems to release the power of communities and people closest to issues to adapt and take action in an increasingly complex world. Christine established, grew and…
Innovation Unit Privacy Policy
…us to make corrections. To do that, simply email us at contact@innnovationunit.org. Our website When you visit www.innovationunit.org, we use google analytics to analyse traffic in order to understand our…
Looking ‘under the bonnet’ of No Wrong Door
…your adopting and adapting efforts If you would like to know more about the support available for adapting No Wrong Door to your context, please contact Cath Dillon – cath.dillon@innovationunit.org…
Lateral leadership and custodianship – a legacy of Covid?
…In some ways, as we adopt and adapt new ways of doing old things, Zoom and Teams are reintroducing clunky old decision-making processes and re-establishing sectoral divisions. That’s why, in…
Mindsets for Social Innovation
…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…
Remind me — what is it that you do?
…find out more about Innovation Unit, tell us about your impact in 2017, or work with us to make some of this happen, contact Sarah Gillinson, Managing Partner at contact@innovationunit.org….
Growing cultures of Radical Caring
…a series of action learning sets, a group of 30 representatives from grassroots projects and organisations will work with Radical Self-Care (RadSec) practitioners and Innovation Unit to grow and embed…
Innovation Unit Design Academy Australia
well as how to form a team within or across organisations. For any questions, contact Jethro Sercombe, Director of Innovation Practice at jethro.sercombe@innovationunitanz.org We are able to bring IUDA to…
Julie Temperley
…projects and programmes, Julie makes data and evidence of different kinds inspiring and useful to practitioners and leaders working to transform the lives of the people they serve. Recent work…
Emma Scott
the needs of all learners. Emma is passionate about making impact through scale, and works with organisations to design strategies for adoption and adaptation of new ideas. This has included…
Dhrushita Shah
As a Finance and Operations Assistant, Dhrushita supports the COO and Finance Manager in processing supplier and associate invoices, setting up payments in Xero, setting up projects in Kimble and…
Kaci Oliphant
…worked on some key projects across a number of social sectors including: the development of a regional Foyer model for young people in the Kimberley, assisting Parkerville to design a…
Savannah Fishel
…Innovation Unit portfolio with specific expertise in the social determinants of health. Recently she’s led projects which have involved: leading work with Sport England to grow and embed their innovative…
Ellen Simmons
…with the Royal College of Art and sponsored by Mind. Outside of work Ellen is interested in regenerative environmental projects, community gardening and local food production. As a proud mother…
Matthew Horne
to coproduction with people with lived experience; our methodology for ‘adopting and adapting’ proven innovations in new places; our randomised control trial in secondary schools; and setting up a social…
Vicki Purewal
…projects, in particular through programme design, innovation coaching and facilitation. Examples of Vicki’s work with Innovation Unit include facilitation and expert input for the co-design of Manchester Live Well; leading…
Ella Walding
…and structures that enable transformation change to happen. Other projects she has led include: Living Well UK, a three year programme to transform mental health outcomes across four pioneering places…
Matt Berry
…opportunity to work on deep and complex challenges over time to make a lasting impact. Matt delivers design work across a range of Innovation Unit projects, from research and discovery…
Jade Tang-Taylor
…change, and systems change. Prior to joining Innovation Unit, Jade worked on a myriad of game-changing projects with change-making organisations. She was part of the leadership group at NZ’s largest…
Heather Rolinson
…other authorities. She has also coached on the Regional Adoption Agencies Programme. Heather has worked in public sector consulting for fourteen years and has wide experience of innovation, organisational development…
Hannah Jackson
…for children pathfinder programme and on the Dfe Innovation programme . She has also worked on a number of smaller children’s services projects. Before Innovation Unit, Hannah was at Teach…
David Albury
David is a Senior Associate at Innovation Unit. As a co-founder and previous Board Director, David has helped shape the organisation and its strategy since its foundation in 2006. He…
Mike Rees
…has also continued to support innovation in Children’s Services. Mike has also worked/is working on projects for the Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner and the city of Doncaster Council….
Lizzie Cain
Lizzie is a Senior Innovation Consultant with responsibility for developing Innovation Unit’s learning projects. She is currently leading work with Sport England and the NHS Confederation, supporting them to consolidate…
Emma Whettingsteel
…sectors, and evaluation of completed projects. Her creative and caring approach to design allows her to tailor solutions to meet unique community needs. In addition to her role at Innovation…
Laura Botsford
…she led Innovation and Strategic Projects at Action for Children, where she developed numerous award-winning fundraising innovations. Laura is passionate about co-design and design thinking, and the confluence of service…
Otto Wolf
Otto is an associate at Innovation Unit. Currently, he is working on the Health Equalities Development Grants project, along with two other projects. One focuses on supporting voluntary sector collaborations,…
Sonja Dahl
…of design strategy to Innovation Units projects and has helped shape and inform a number of winning bids and active project work with clients right across the Innovation Unit portfolio….
Zoe Appleton
…how better to support young homelessness people across England. Zoe’s recent projects have included work on tackling youth violence in Greater Manchester, and supporting the scaling and spreading of the…
Perrie Ballantyne
…projects that brought research knowledge together with industry, community and government players. Prior to this, Perrie spent 17 years based in the UK and Europe in roles that include Director…
Against the odds: successfully scaling innovation in the nhs
…NHS. Their new report, ‘Against the Odds: Successfully scaling innovation in the NHS’, reveals new insights from research into ten case studies of innovations that have successfully spread in the…
Named Social Worker Update
…webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb537uI0cFE&t=2374s Named Social Worker Portrait We asked a named social worker, Beth from Shropshire, about her experiences in the programme so far… What made you want to be…
Scaling innovation twitter chat
need time, space and resources to implement and adapt an innovation in their own setting. It needs to be easier for innovators to set up dedicated organisations or groups to…
Thrive: Schools reinvented for the real challenges we face
…around the world including in Europe, South Africa, Australia and America. www.innovationunit.org.uk For an interview with Valerie, please contact Becky Slack on 07854 221 568 or at becky@slackcommunications.co.uk Our specialists…
5 things we’ve learnt about play in Aotearoa (so far)
…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…
IUANZ Learning Series: Insights on Thriving Young People/Rangatahi
…the future state of work and education for young people. The following word cloud represents this discussion and the key insights that arose. 3 KEY THEMES: ADAPTABILITY Adaptability has been…
Classrooms are not enough – new research report suggests
…Qatar will be from November 19-21, 2019 under the theme “ UnLearn, ReLearn: What it means to be Human”. For further information about WISE, visit www.wise-qatar.org About Innovation Unit: Innovation…
Trapped on site: scaling new practices in Australian schools
…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…
Always Hope: Transforming the lives of care experienced young adults in the UK justice system
…done and it is important to remember that together we have already achieved something powerful. Together we can do much more. Get in touch with jessie.ben-ami@innovationunit.org to find out more….
A perfect storm: What the end of the rental moratorium says about the state of social housing in Western Australia (part 1 of 2)
…is a need for reform in our social housing sector. We need to adopt innovative strategic approaches to increase the supply of affordable housing. We need to build a resilient…
Innovation Unit welcomes Heather Rolinson as Director
further and focus on working with whole systems and places to adopt, adapt and scale innovations that deliver lasting impact and reduce costs.”Matthew Horne Chief Executive “I am delighted to…
Commissioning Innovation
…hosting us in their lovely Brown Street studio, and thank you again to our excellent panellists. If you’d like to get in touch, you can reach out at matt.berry@innovationunitanz.org. …
Merger with NZ social change agency Innovate Change
…Who can I talk with to find out more? Contact Keren Caple, Chief Executive Australia New Zealand, Innovation Unit on +64 9 3787642 or +61 1800 953 026 or keren.caple@innovationunit.org….
The Future of Learning arrives in Bermuda
…Bermuda, visit the Learning First website. To talk to us about how we support partners to transform complex systems, contact Innovation Unit Australia New Zealand CEO Keren Caple at keren.caple@innovationunit.org….
Ella Walding wins International Service Design Award 2017
Last week, our Service Designer Ella Walding was awarded the International Service Design Award for organisational impact in Government. Ella was one of nine professionals and five students whose projects…
Would you like to grow your design expertise to lead social change?
…large VCSE organisations. What’s the time commitment? The programme runs from September to June and includes weekly sessions and workshops, accompanied by one-to-one coaching, design projects and group activities. Most…
Three shifts we have to make in homelessness service design
…visiting, and then wonder why people remain socially isolated. Designing with higher expectations can support people to heal and grow. In the same way that adaptations have been made to…
Patients must be at the heart of the NHS – and of innovation
…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…
Healthcare professionals need to raise the ‘weight issue’
…optional continuation of the weight management service engagement. To access the full report, go to: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/weight-management-services-insights-into-user-experiences If you want to find out more about the research and the findings, or…
Revealing potential for Healthier High Streets
…involved have collaborated on community events and workshops and offered each other informal advice and support. Watch our video on the project and read the final project report here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=BDHwPFE-d0Y&feature=youtu.be…
A Journey to Recovery: shifts in thinking about women’s refuges (part 2)
…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…
What does it take to deliver truly person-centred care?
…that they may enjoy what Tricia Nicoll calls ‘gloriously ordinary lives’. Here we highlight some key themes of the discussion from the webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb537uI0cFE&t=2374s We’re all individuals The first step…
Scaling up innovation requires action at multiple levels
…and resources to implement it, and to do the hard work of adapting the innovation to make it work in their own context. Innovators and adopters will also often need…
Four things we’re learning about digital access for people experiencing homelessness
…Retrieved from http://www.accan.org.au/files/Grants/homelessandconnected/Homeless_and_Connected_web.pdfNote: this is the most recent research in this field in Australia. However, there are challenges experienced by rough sleepers that don’t typically affect the rest of the…
Tender opportunity: Evaluator for the Living Well UK programme
…three-year programme to adapt and adopt a Living Well system for better adult mental health in four different sites across the UK. Through this programme, Innovation Unit and Big Lottery…
We need more and different perspectives, skills and experience to meet the challenges ahead
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…
How Greater Manchester rapidly adapted systems and processes to meet people’s needs
to us to write what happens next… You can read the full report here and you can follow Innovation Unit on Twitter @innovation_unit To talk to Innovation Unit, contact seb.chapleau@innovationunit.org….
Preventing gendered violence: what we have learnt from young people
…the development and deployment phase of our co-designed creative intervention. If you would like to learn more about the FDV Primary Prevention Youth Co-Design Project, please contact Matt Berry (matthew.norman@innovationunit.org)…
The opportunity of a generation
…the big shifts taking place in mental health and will soon publish our findings. If you are interested in learning from our work, please get in touch via nick.webb@innovationunit.org ….
Better Endings: creating new solutions for end of life care
…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….
Scale and innovation in early years
…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…
Update on Named Social Worker Pilot
…to supercharge social work in their communities. ”Lyn Romeo Chief Social Worker for Adults at the Department of Health More information is available below and you can contact nsw@innovationunit.org for…
Innovation Unit nominated as MCA Awards 2018 Finalist
…a hugely challenging context.”Henry Leak Hub Manager, West London CCG Read more about the project here or to discuss the work in more detail, please contact Jonny Mallinson – jonny.mallinson@innovationunit.org…
Family Hubs: what are we learning about designing forward differently
…multi-disciplinary partnerships and working hand-in-hand with communities to meet local needs. If you are interested in working with us, or hearing more about what we have learned, please contact charlotte.billington@innovationunit.org….
Stories of hope and humanity
…Send a maximum of 10 minutes of footage to: lwuk@innovationunit.org Please write your name and contact number in the email in case we need to get in touch. If the…
Bridging the Gaps
…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…
Harakeke
…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…
From programmes to people
…lead the way in practice and innovation. You can read the full report here and you can follow Innovation Unit on Twitter @innovation_unit To talk to Innovation Unit, contact daisy.carter@innovationunit.org….
Working in a crisis: what Greater Manchester learnt about how we work
…neighbourhood – its people and its strengths. You can read the full report here and you can follow Innovation Unit on Twitter @innovation_unit To talk to Innovation Unit, contact daisy.carter@innovationunit.org….
How edtech can transform learning for the better
…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…
Will the UK Metro Mayors change British Politics?
…support is needed for all those that are generating and delivering the ideas. In the Mayors Challenge the teams responsible for delivering the projects are also supported to strengthen the…
Three new board members join Innovation Unit
…mission. Rebekah Ayres (currently Director of Organisational Capabilities at HM Revenue & Customs), Joe Ludlow (Impact Investment Director for UFI) and James Thomas (Director of Children’s Services, Richmond Upon Thames)…
The state of social housing in Western Australia: Ideas and innovations for the future (part 2 of 2)
…early adopter of this model and has experienced significant successes; reductions of greater than 35% in long-term and repeated homelessness since 2007. Across the four main principles of the Housing…
Our Education System Needs More Architects – of School Redesign
…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…
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…
Building Bridges: Growing Community Sector Capacity in Health Equity Partnerships
…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…
Why place-based transformation requires teams to work at all levels of the system
…distinctive features, the unique feel and mood of a place. These projects fall into the trap of stuff being ‘done to’, rather than ‘with’ people. Equally, projects working at a…
Jam-packed Innovation: Highlights from our Service Design Jam at the Royal College of Art
…Sport England partners made themselves available for research interviews and offered feedback. “What was great is that we actually had access to real research participants. We could speak to disabled…
Example Reports
Against the odds: Successfully scaling innovation in the NHS Against the Odds: Successfully scaling innovation in the NHS calls on system leaders and policymakers to do more to create the…
Our race awareness journey
delivering projects and programmes. Our people & processes – we will change the way we recruit staff, associates and board members to create a more diverse and inclusive organization. We…
Example Quick Guide
provoking ideas and insights from the Innovation Programme, drawing on the evaluations of Round One projects, IP learning events and on-the-ground experiences of projects. Author: Spring Consortium Publish date: 2017…
Adopting Innovation to improve health and care
Innovation Unit is working with four health and care systems to set up innovation hubs where they can develop knowledge, skills and confidence to identify, adapt and adopt the innovations…
Social innovation is a serious business. Seriously.
…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….
Our Way Home: new roles, insights and stories of impact
…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…
Turning the tide on tragedy
…its claim to scientific and objective distance feels at odds with something that we all instinctively know is highly subjective and deeply personal (our mental health). People who understand our…
In conversation with… William Roberts
…success can be replicated in other places. “Most good change I’ve seen starts with relationships.”William Roberts In addition to the key factors for scale, William discusses the importance of adaptation…
Thoughts on the Long Term Plan
…research with The Health Foundation on how to scale innovation within the NHS ‘ Against the Odds’ . One of the key findings from that research was that if you…
Place-based transformation takes time. Lots of it.
…values and impact began to “disrupt” and impress the rest of the system was critical to the adoption of the model into the mainstream. The model would have “bounced off”…
Apart of Me
…of Me is children can create a legacy alongside their ill family member.”Olly Clabburn PhD Watch their inspiring short video to see how they are helping families. https://vimeo.com/225147072 We believe…
Hertfordshire Family Safeguarding wins top Guardian award
…the first year alone were £2.6m. Since then, more investments have been made by the Innovation Programme so that the model will be scaled to an additional four adopter sites….
How do you design a structure for partnering across the NHS, local authorities and community groups?
…as new Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) are embedded in legislation and look to develop partnerships. In March our organisations came together to host an online webinar and networking session on…
What the Voice teaches us about co-design
One of our key principles that we adopt across all our work is listening to and amplifying the voices of people most impacted. It seems impossible, then, that we would…
Disruptive learning in and from a crisis
…very high levels of consensus, and this led to a more radical set of big ideas: Dissolve sectoral and organisational boundaries – which might mean creating leadership roles that span…
Greater Manchester Guide: Developing Asset Based Approaches to Primary Care
…to make asset based primary care work in practice, and what it would take to adopt it, not just in isolated pockets but across a whole neighbourhood, system or region….
Human-scale at Scale – Cultivating new education cultures
…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…
Green energy, local jobs, warm homes
…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…
How Social Innovation is Deeply Māori
…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…
The edtech litmus test
…Technologies UCL Knowledge Lab 2. ADAPTABILITY “Adaptability is key. Can the teacher and student locally adapt the technology to be used in an engaging way with others around them? Technology…
Sarah Gillinson Interviews Paul Miller – Bethnal Green Ventures
…adapt with relative ease, and others cannot escape and suffer daily. For BGV the question becomes how can tech ventures help bridge these divides? And the same must be true…
Is the UK in Need of a Micro School Revolution?
…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,…
Congratulations to our first Coach4Care coaches!
…truly understand what it is like to care for someone with an illness. In addition to their own lived experiences, coaches receive training and ongoing support from professional coaching organisation…
Innovating around the world: extending our impact to New Zealand
…and mind-set, and we know we can have far more impact in the Asia Pacific region if we work together. We’ll second staff to each other’s organisations; we’ll appoint cross-organisational…
Healthy High Streets features in healthy eating campaign
…The Charity is also running complementary projects on childhood obesity focussed on the home, the school and the high street. We are delivery partner for the high street based project…
Radical evolution in UK education
…and organisationally. Even before the terrible tragedy of Ruth Perry, Ofsted has had the power to make and break careers and lives with its one-word judgements of schools and their…
Systems of Oppression
…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…
The Doughnut of Social and Planetary Boundaries
…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…
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…
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…
Ground-breaking consortium appointed to deliver new online portal for people experiencing homelessness in WA
…million contract. The project will engage community service organisations and people with lived experience in the design process to ensure the portal is accessible and meets the needs of its…
How we’re trying to bring anti racism to our practice and project work
…learn from each other and problem-solve race-related challenges in projects. Creating space and safety for teams to have brave and curious conversations about race Talking about race is difficult, especially…
Levelling up: bricks and mortar were never going to be enough
of scale: spreading to new places, sustainability over time, continual improvement, and transfer of ownership from innovators to adopters. Our own methodology for adopting and adapting innovations to new and…
Achieving better outcomes for children and young people at Parkerville Children and Youth Services through radically personalised shared care journeys
…approach, as opposed to running a traditional pilot to trial the new model of care. Pilots are large scale, long-term, expensive projects that leave little room for trial and error…
How ‘getting on with it’ can reap the rewards when it comes to place-based transformation
…should be about connecting and galvanising a community of people with shared values, not just convening a group of organisations together to attend steering groups and offer feedback on ideas….
Learning from a crisis: how we need ambitious and enabling political leadership
…a focus on people; local, cross-sector sharing of resource and responsibility to help people when and where they need it and, empowerment of individuals and organisations who are in the…
Why existing and emerging local leaders need space and confidence to fail, grow and thrive
…you have. Many of Innovation Unit’s projects are not dissimilar to this. We spend time with leaders helping them to understand their context; the people, organisations and cultures that exist;…
The Case for Change: No Wrong Door shows the way
…Hub and indeed the whole No Wrong Door project, which is one of three innovative projects sharing £84m over five years as part of the DfE’s Strengthening Families, Protecting Children…
Why the UK needs to understand when and how PBL really ‘works’
…on student learning. (And to be clear, when we say PBL, we don’t mean the themed curriculum kind that reorganises subject content to make it seem relevant, but the kind…
Strong relationships as the golden thread in thriving societies
…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…
Innovation Unit spins out Australian organisation
…places, organisations and systems, in the UK and globally, to ensure innovation has lasting impact, at scale. Innovation Unit Australia will focus its energy on: – High value innovation consultancy:…
New school models in the US: 10 things we have learned
…supporting the opening of a new kind of school in the UK and in so doing we are adapting and adopting the approaches we’ve admired. Here are 10 things we’ve…
Today we launch IU Australia. Time to feel proud.
…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)….
Delivering asset-based services for young people
…No Wrong Door. For example: Would this be good enough for my child? Are we managing risk for the organisation or risk to the young person? Is there a shared…
Example Posters
Learning and impact from the projects involved in the Innovation Programme, including evaluation outcomes. Click the image to download. Author: Spring Consortium Publish date: February 2018…
InnovationUnit_Formula_2018
InnovationUnit Formula 2018
InnovationUnit_ModelforScale_2018
Innovation Unit Model for Scale