Bullying, suicide and ice are three key issues that impact our clients, families and communities in detrimental ways. Throughout 2016 and 2017, we set out to develop a social issues strategy in a way that allowed us to step outside our daily roles and reflect, review and consider new ways of working with people experiencing these issues.
We were extremely fortunate to engage an external facilitator, Carly Westwood from Fresh Thinking, who invested her skills and time to do some pro-bono activity with us and help to develop this important piece of work.
Utilising human-centred design, Carly put the person or community at the heart of the work.
Human-centred design is human-centred approach to innovation (or creative problem solving) that draws from the designers’ toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
– Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO
The process involved us consulting with our clients, community, stakeholders and experts in their fields, reviewing data and research for clues on existing gaps and challenges within the bullying, suicide and ice spaces. We then gained hundreds of insights that allowed us to identify what the gaps were, and what the new opportunity areas were for new or improved ways of working across these issues.
After developing these opportunity areas and initial prototypes, we ran a number of focus groups with key stakeholders to road test the ideas and seek their advice and wisdom on how to build upon the issues moving forward.
Our anti-bullying campaign #CoolToBeKind developed as a result of our social issues strategy. We are now delivering workshops with our Kool Kids program and in local schools with children who are identified as at risk. The campaign revolves around kindness — kind to self, kind to others and kind to the environment.cii
Another strong outcome of the strategy across all three issues was the need to create lots of opportunities for our Aboriginal clients to connect with their culture, traditional healing practices and projects that improve their health and wellbeing.
We thank Carly for helping shape a way forward to improve outcomes for young people affected by bullying, suicide and ice.
Our Social Issues Strategy details the concerns that young people face and provides solid recommendations which have been tested and supported by young people and community members.
Empowering People to Change Their Lives
For over 40 years Weave has provided a way up and a way forward for children, young people, women, families and communities.