#minus one with carly but the circumstances were different

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[dxb101-elysha-blog]

Major Charrette Consultation

The Idea

Last week the Major Charrette brief was published and the groups were finalised. Our group remained, for the most part, the same as the minor charrette, minus one member due to requirements for team numbers (5 members per group). The decision to remain with the same group was due to a successful team dynamic in the minor charrette - all members were often on the same page, contributed equally and worked efficiently together with a unified goal in mind. In short, the brief was to:

“come up with creative and innovative strategies to [provide care and support for people who are currently homeless or recently arrived refugees in and around Brisbane] in ways that promote their rights and wellbeing, as well as recognising difference, creating connections, and cultivating respect.”

Initially, our group went away and iterated through some ideas to take to the consultation. Some of the main points we took from the brief document was that our design needed to:

Focus on either refugees settling in Brisbane, or Brisbane’s homeless population

Be specific to a target demographic within that classification

Demonstrate specific design, marketing and communication strategies

Include a refined prototype and a 1 minute video

Be pitched within a strict 10minute time limit

Appeal to an audience of “representatives from the public, private, and not-for-profit organisations and agencies that provide support for people who are currently homeless or recently arrived refugees in and around Brisbane”

As a group we agreed we wanted to focus on the homeless population and looked into some significant gaps in their lives - access to money for food and essential products, education and a way to spend their days to limit those who find themselves getting into drugs as a result. We researched these ideas and found that many initiatives addressing the first issue existed already and targeted a very wide demographic, while the second was made redundant due to access to public school systems. The third idea was based off an article written by J.F Sargent about his experience with homelessness, stating “having nothing to do and nowhere to go got so stressful that I ended up finding a good source of LSD...and this became my last resort for filling time.” (Sargent, 2013). 

While the group liked the idea of providing homeless people with a way to spend their day, this too was far too broad and did not target a refined and specific demographic as stated in the brief. 

Finally I looked into the statistics about what makes up Queensland’s and Brisbane’s homeless population, and found that 44% of homeless people are women (ABS, 2017). I then looked further into young women as a target demographic and found that, in particular, not many services exist for homeless women experiencing pregnancy. 

“There is nowhere specifically for pregnant women, we haven't got places for women with mental health issues either, or lots of people that need specialist care.” (Winder, 2015).

We also found that the clinical services that did exist were not being utilised due to a fear that women would lose their baby to child services, and that many mothers delayed seeking medical help "because of the negative experiences of other homeless youth who lost custody of their newborns.” (Smid, 2017)

“I was afraid [the clinic] would find out about me being pregnant and try to take away my baby, just like they do to everyone who’s been homeless for any time during their pregnancy.” (Samantha, pregnant ‘street-wife’, 22 years old, 2015)

                                                         AND

“You can’t get all excited when you’ve got worries and things you’ve got to take care of . . . like making sure they don’t abduct your children if you don’t live the way they want you to.” (Freddie, 36 year old homeless father-to-be, 2015)

We took these statistics into consideration and decided to direct our design towards a relaxed and non-government funded prenatal service for homeless, pregnant women, without the risks associated with existing clinics. We considered the need for mobility as well to reach women with limited access to transportation and decided to take the idea of a prenatal service van into our consultation with Carly. 

The Consultation 

After explaining the idea to Carly, she had many suggestions for improvement, but was overall excited by the concept and the idea in general. 

Beginning with the positives, Carly was interested in the idea of providing a risk free service for pregnant women and said the ‘foundation of the idea [was] strong’.

Her only suggestions were to work within a specific ideation method and conduct further research to answer a series of strategy-based questions:

Has this idea been implemented in other countries?

How has it worked?

How will you engage medical volunteers?

Are there other forms of mobility to use rather than a van? - too many groups have gone down this track

What locations will your service visit and when?

How will you reach out to the homeless women?

Understand your target market - how did these women end up on the streets?

Consider who your stakeholders are - how will you avoid government funding?- private hospital? 

These were all question that we agreed we needed to answer in order to refine the idea and understand how our design concept would work and operate in real life. We also considered; 

How would we source the necessary medical equipment? How would we approach the ethical dilemma of leaving children in the custody of potentially unfit parents and environments? How would we ensure patients return to our services? And, How would we assist women who are actually going into labour? 

Making The Changes

Primarily, the first change we wanted to make was to differentiate ourselves from other ideas by removing the van element and replacing it with another solution to the issue of mobility, hence, I decided to further iterate our concept on behalf of the group using the SCAMPER method of ideation:

We talked about different methods or mobility as well as the concept of removing this element and instead, opting for a secure location in a clinic, however, this idea was too similar to existing clinics that pregnant, homeless women tend to avoid. 

We then discussed what other services we may provide, such as a potential, interstate charter bus for abortions, providing education on pregnancy, labour, childbirth and maternity, and getting women in particularly bad circumstances - perhaps not fit for a child - in touch with the appropriate agencies - eliminating the risk of merely taking the child. 

Finally, we iterated how to make the environment more casual and eliminate the clinic-like setting to remove the negative connotations of government run organisations, and added modifications to our services. We decided we needed to also focus on helping women through their actual labour experience and to incentivise them to keep returning to our services for prenatal care throughout their pregnancy - issuing a labour-alert wristband with GPS and a medical profile to returning patients in their last month of pregnancy.

In order to answer the rest of the questions Carly had asked us, we split into groups to conduct research and produce the rest of the elements required for submission:

The Research

The Presentation

The 1 minute Video

The Prototype 

The Collaborative Script

In addition to the video, I took notes during the consultation and gave Carly’s list of research question to our researcher.

Overall, the consultation went well and the questions posed by Carly were all positive additions to our proposed service and were based on our approaches to branding, advertising and reaching out to stakeholders, beneficiaries and volunteers. Through research we plan to answer questions regarding the best ways to do this, based on what has worked for similar volunteer services and the best places to visit based on the homeless population across Brisbane. 

References

Austrian Bureau of Statistics. 2017. “Homelessness in Queensland”. Homelessness Australia. Accessed May 15, 2017. http://www.homelessnessaustralia.org.au/images/publications/Infographics/QLD_-_updated_Jan_2014.pdf

Sargent, J. 2013. “7 Things No One Tells You About Being Homeless”. Cracked. Accessed May 10, 2017. http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1246-7-things-no-one-tells-you-about-being-homeless.html

Smid, M. 2017. “The Challenge of Pregnancy among Homeless Youth: Reclaiming a Lost Opportunity”. PubMed Central (PMC). Accessed May 14, 2017. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3037014/

Winder, M. 2017. “Pregnant women among rising number of homeless in NZ cities”. The New Zealand Herald. Accessed May 15, 2017. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11500365