When Mum knows best
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It was an honour to recently present our work at a Save the Children conference in Belfast.
I was accompanied by Ashleigh and Heather, two of the East Belfast mums we worked with to co-design the next phase of the Wonderwords programme.
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There’s no doubt that co-design elevated this work. How? Broadly, in three ways:
1. By bringing in representatives of the target audience to the design process we gained access to their lived-experience. We were able to create something special that sang to them, but we were also (hopefully) able to avoid misstepping, which is so easy to do when it comes to a hyper-delicate subject like parenting.
2. Co-design added credibility. The rigour of the methodology meant the output stood up to scrutiny among the policy bigwigs and budget-holders that we were presenting to at the conference.
3. The co-design process also created a fired-up crew of parents who are willing and able to advocate for the campaign. Ashleigh and Heather and the other parents that took part in the process, which consisted of 5x 2-hour sessions over a period of eight weeks, became part owners of the work. It became personal for them. They gained a stake in it. They signed it off. Which made them all the more keen to support the campaign and be part of where it goes next.
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THANK YOU to the parents that took part, the Sure Start team that made the group possible, as well as Save The Children’s spectacularly awesome team in Belfast.