Good Help for Families in Camden After Covid19

Camden Family Changemakers was a co-design project carried out in 2021 between Camden Council’s family services team, parents and family members residing in Camden, London College of Communication (LCC) MA Service Design and MA Data Visualisation students, two MA Service Design alumni, five academic staff members, the Service Futures Lab at LCC and the UAL’s Public Collaboration Lab. The project was based on three principles: deliberative dialogue, participatory design and design justice. 

The partners came together to create a design vision for “good help” for families after the COVID-19 pandemic. As well as supporting the Council’s aims around its Early Help Service, and co-developing policies and services, the project produced a number of insights around how to do co-design in a non-extractive way, and the potential of visual and material methods both in policy and on the front line of council services. 

The project has had impact on the way collaborative policymaking has been carried out in Camden Council, is being recommended as the “practice standard” to inform schools’ engagement with families, as well as being used as an exemplar for Camden’s “Build Back Stonger” education strategy, and directly influenced Camden’s successful application for funding from the Department of Education to expand advice and guidance provision in community settings, among others. It has also been used in developing the Health and Wellbeing strategy and the Camden Resilient Families Framework, and has been cited in conversations with Ministry of Justice and the Department for Health and Social Care.