The new NYEB co-design guide brings together different ideas and research from groups working to support community-led initiatives that address youth unemployment.
We understand co-design as a practice where people work together to design or create something new. The group brings together their knowledge, skills and resources to better understand, create, test and learn how their design can solve a problem or make something work better.
Co-design works best when the voices of those with lived experience of the problem are included as equal contributors to the conversation and decision making throughout the entire process. Everyone has something to learn and contribute.
The guide proposes a co-design process of:
- framing what you want to change and engaging the right people to collaborate;
- discovering the bigger picture of what is happening and why;
- designing and agreeing on an initiative;
- trialling and monitoring the initiative;
- reviewing and adapting the initiative based on what you learn;
- and building on your work to make change.
The guide offers questions and ideas for action
Start conversations and help people collaborate and design solutions to youth employment together!
Leading co-design and creating strategies informed by lived experience is one of the four key practice elements of the NYEB. This guide can help Community Investment Committees to lead co-design in their community, but it can also help think through and practice the other interrelated elements of facilitating collaboration, building evidence, and influencing change to see young people thriving, socially connected, and economically secure in your community.
There is no ‘one way’ to do co-design, just as there is no one person or organisation that can solve a complex problem alone. Not all the questions or ideas in the guide will be applicable across all communities. Co-design is a practice of learning through doing and trying something new. The design created together might not work as planned the first time, but that will bring new learnings for when you try again.
Download the Co-Design Guide [PDF]
This co-design guide is informed by diverse knowledge across the Brotherhood of St. Laurence and NYEB, and others working to support community-led co-design, including: Auckland Co-design Lab, The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TASCI), Beyond Sticky Notes, Kasama Consulting, Lankelly Chase, and the Tamarack Institute.