On Friday 14th March, we (Fiona and Vivien) spent the day with students from the Masters in Service Design Programme at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. These students are completing a Prototyping module. This involves a short period of intensive learning about a topic, in this case, preventing social isolation and loneliness in older people. They then work in groups to rapidly prototype solutions to address the issue. This is called a ‘prototypathon’!
The task for the students is to design a set of ‘prompt cards’ for those whose work involves supporting older people within the community. The prompt cards could highlight principles such as ‘working in equal partnership’ or ‘supporting carers’. They could include examples of interventions or activities or could identify key points when extra support might be needed by an older person in order to maintain or develop social connections. The students will also design how the cards will look. Their brief is to produce a design that is attractive and engaging with clear accessible messages.
To help the students with this task, we provided some background reading materials and gave an overview of Plan P. The students then worked with a set of personas of older people, giving them the opportunity to think in more detail about the challenges an older person might face, the strengths they might bring and the kind of solutions they might be seeking.
In the afternoon we were joined by Jackie Doe, Project lead and Ann Campbell, a volunteer (and older person) from Perth and Kinross Healthy Communities Collaborative. Jackie and Ann described the work of the collaborative and some of the challenges, for example in trying to set up a lunch club and successes like establishing an indoor Kurling club for older people in Coupar Angus. They also spent some time chatting with students in smaller groups to really inform some of their thinking about their prototyping task.
There was lots of enthusiasm, interest and insightful questioning from the students and we look forward to working with them over the next couple of weeks as they develop their ideas for prompt cards. We plan to use the cards within Plan P and to share them widely through our IRISS network. We hope they will be a useful resource for a wide range of practitioners in health and social care.
Huge thanks to Fraser Bruce (Module Lead) and Selina Law (Service Designer) for setting up the workshop, to Jackie and Ann for giving their time and of course to the students for bringing a new slant to our way of thinking about prevention.