Invitation to Participate: Care Home Labs
The joint IRISS (Institute of Research and Innovation in Social Services) and Scottish Care project Fit for the Future is looking for a care home in West Lothian that is enthusiastic about improving their services to support better outcomes for older people and interested in working in new ways.
What is a lab?
A Lab is the name given to an environment where the people involved in providing support can come together and try out a new ways of working. Labs can be used to test out service processes, interactions, products and experiences.
A social service lab offers the opportunity to test and develop news ways of working, utilising the knowledge and experience of all service stakeholders.
As a part of the joint IRISS and Scottish Care project Fit for the Future, we are looking for a care home in West Lothian who would like to use the lab to improve and change their services to improve outcomes for older people.
This opportunity could be used in three different ways, for example to:
- Understand the experience of care – i.e. specific transitions such as first entering a care home, leaving a care home to spend time in hospital or having family visit.
- Test out new ideas, i.e. adapting current service processes, interactions, products and experiences.
- Test the creation of new service, i.e. developing new service processes, interactions, products and experiences.
However we openly welcome other ideas in which the function and experiences of support could be approached.
What Fit for the Future can offer you as a provider
Partnership – We would provide support to develop your idea and the design of the lab to test this idea. It is vital that the people who will be part of the lab will be a part of this process.
Design – Depending upon the opportunity you want to explore, we would create the environments and prototypes you need in order to test the functionality and peoples’ experience of the idea.
Facilitation and recording – After the opportunity has been tested we would facilitate a discussion between everyone involved to discover their thoughts, opinions, ideas and experiences. We hope to capture learning from the day (in the medium that is most appropriate ie. Photos, videos) We will hope to capture the discussion and ‘debrief’ following the lab. This will mean that we have a robust record of the experience from multiple perspectives.
Evaluation – There will be a participative evaluation during their reflective session, and a series of follow up sessions after the lab to move forwards with learning.
Moving Forwards – This project aims to support the independent sector through change and improvement. We would be interested in supporting the involved provider to take the next step in utilizing their learning from their labs.
Sharing– IRISS & Scottish Care are interested in sharing the learning from this lab (both about the specific learning experience, but also about the medium of labs themselves). The participating provider must consent to share their experience of the process with other stakeholders.
Developing Your Idea
Ideas can come from anywhere. They can be solutions to problems, improvements for processes already in place or radical innovations.
This project has a focus on looking to the future of care, and making sure the independent sector is responding proactively to the Reshaping Care for Older People agenda. IRISS can also support you to source ideas and make safe spaces to ignite your creative spark!
Consider:
- The issue/problem that you are looking to solve or the aspect of your service that you would like to improve.
- What your idea for improvement is
- Who will this benefit? (i.e. staff, service users, carers visiting the facility)
- How this change would make you more ready to face the challenges of Reshaping Care for Older People.
- Any practical or ethical challenges for carrying this test out in a real care setting
Time Commitment & Joint Working
Below is the time commitment that your organisation would commit to in order to develop and execute the care home lab:
- Meeting to discuss labs and possible ideas within your agency
- Next meeting where you will present your idea for consideration
- Or Support to develop ideas and source ideas from staff, residents and families if needed
- 3 meetings over the space of 6-8 weeks where we develop the idea more in depth and design the lab with detail. These meetings should include all the people involved in the lab
- Final brief for the day including development of any materials and consent to film/capture the day
- 1 or 2 day lab
- 1/2 day to debrief after lab and think about moving forward
- An evaluation for the day- including main learning points and action plan for moving ahead.
- Ongoing development to ‘move forwards’ from lab (dependent on chosen output)
For more information on Fit for the Future please visit https://blogs.iriss.org.uk/fitforthefuture/
If you are interested in participating in the lab, or want to hear more about them please contact:
07545696162
