Resilient Blocks
A tool to help community services better engage with Camden families, in order to understand their support systems and how COVID-19 has impacted them.
Collaboration with Camden’s Early Help Programme | 4 months (January - April 2021) | Team of 4 | Full Report
Challenge
Defining what good help services look like for families living in Camden after COVID-19
The pandemic has exacerbated existing differences between people of varying backgrounds: social distancing restrictions, for instance, had the unintended consequence of eliminating many forms of informal support, affecting lower-income families disproportionately.
These forms of organic support are not easily quantifiable, making it hard for service providers to fully understand a family’s specific situation and subsequent needs.
Example of how COVID-19 can disrupt a family's home situation, leading to them needing formal help
Stakeholder Collaboration
Systems Thinking
It is impossible to separate a family’s situation from the society it inhabits, the institutions it relies on, and the support network around it. With this in mind, we started off our user research by understanding Camden’s help system, and asking questions, such as:
Who has the power in Camden’s help ecosystem?
Whose needs are not being met by the current offering?
What are the barriers keeping people from seeking, and receiving, the help they need?
What are help workers struggling with? What help do they need?
In order to find answers to these questions, this project captured the thoughts and expertise of players occupying various roles within the system. Amongst those interviewed were:
A social worker
An Early Help worker
A head teacher and student safeguarding leader at a local school
A Changemaker Family: volunteer family with experience of the system
A professional service designer
Industry experts from the fields of healthcare, innovation, government and more
The following diagram plots a series of key stakeholders along a graph that compares their type of work with their sphere of influence, that is to say, how closely their work impacts Camden families.
Stakeholder interviews plotted by proximity to Camden, and position on a spectrum between theory and practice.
Key Takeaways from Stakeholders
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Unlike statutory services, Early Help is voluntary for families, which means that clear, non-threatening communication is key in getting them to participate.
It takes a village to raise a child. It is important for the different players in this village to be identified and for them to work together, clearly communicating expectations, concerns and next steps.
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There is stigma, and fear of escalation, associated with asking for help from a state funded service. Informal approaches help those seeking help feel welcomed.
Sadly, as help services have grown, their intake processes have become more clinical and alienating.
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Services should function as a network, not a cluster of silos.
Good help involves service providers getting up to speed with a family’s needs ahead of time. Unfortunately, there are gaps in the system meaning families have to repeat information over and over.
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The future of good help involves users becoming empowered to advocate for themselves and having a say in what their family needs. Less prescribing, more collaboration.
How might we…
…empower people to identify and express their needs clearly?
...create a common language between services, helping users experience familiarity and cohesion throughout the system?
Approach
Play as a practical tool used with adults to lower inhibitions, build trust, and increase engagement
Why play?
Blocks are universally familiar & make difficult topics approachable
Building is a metaphor for co-defining and co-designing
Using props engages the participant in a physical manner, reinforcing their involvement
Playful activities are fun, non-judgemental, and help de-stigmatise asking for help
By externalising situations, participants can create distance between themselves and their circumstances, creating a safe space for reflection
Service Concept
Resilient Blocks
Resilient Blocks is a physical game that serves as a conversation starter during Early Help’s intake process, aiding help workers build trust with new families. The service seeks to achieve the following three goals:
1. Visualise a person’s support system before the pandemic;
2. Use a traffic light system to reflect on the impact that the virus outbreak had on this support system;
3. Highlight the connections and needs that arose from this shift in resources and power
Set of instructions for Early Help workers getting familiar with the tool
Tool in Action
Meet Emma, a single mother of two, living in Kentish Town
As a single parent in the pandemic, Emma struggles to balance her work and childcare responsibilities now that school is off and her parents are unable to help while isolating.
On the bright side, now that welfare checks happen over the phone, they are more frequent and allow her to flag issues faster.
This example shows how the tool can identify what good help looks like (the switch to phone check ups) as well as areas that need help (Emma’s dependency on older family members for childminding).
The following video shows the tool at work in the context of an intake interview with Early Help:
Capability Mapping
Who owns it?
Service providers facilitate the use of the tool but it does not require a specific or costly set of physical pieces: any set of playing blocks can be picked up to become Resilient Blocks. Donated legos, blocks already in family homes, etc.
Where does it live?
Resilient Blocks will be strategically placed around various local organizations to facilitate conversations around seeking help. These include: Early Help itself, nurseries, schools, GPs, and other organizations around Camden.
How does it evolve?
The flexibility designed into the tool allows for its use to progress beyond its original scope: Today, it’s used to assess the impact of COVID-19, tomorrow it could adapt to any number of new stressors.
Want to learn more?
Have a look at the full Resilient Blocks Report, where you can find a more in-depth explanation of how the tool was tested and iterated, as well as future plans for its growth and development.