Empowering young people to feel more in control

What is the state of communication between young people and social services, and how can it be improved? In this project we researched young people’s experiences and co-designed an app that answered many of the discovered needs.

The Swedish Department of Social Affairs, Service Design Lead, 3 person team, 12 months 2017-2018.

This project explored the future of communication between young people and Social Services, with the goal of increasing young people’s influence. My former employer, Ocean Design Agency, was assigned the project by the Swedish Department of Social Affairs and SVID.

My work as Design Lead included: In-depth interviews; Analysing and Visualising Insights; Co-creative workshops and Co-designing digital concepts.

Interviewing young people about their communication with social services

Ocean conducted 24 in-depth interviews with young people, social workers and experts. Some of the key insights were that young people often lacked crucial information, and many lacked a simple and accessible way to stay in touch with social workers.

Some of the key insights were that young people often lacked crucial information, and many lacked a simple and accessible way to stay in touch with social workers. We distilled and visualized our insights into the Communication Pyramid, which illustrates the building blocks for increasing influence.

App concept co-designed with young people

The app concept “Kollen” (≈ Keeping Track) was created as an answer to the needs discovered in the research process. Kollen helps young people keep track of, and understand, their process with social services through an interactive timeline. The app also improves availability and relationship-building by providing a secure and private channel of communication to social workers. The concept was co-created in workshops with young people and social workers.

The project was presented at a nation-wide series of conferences for social service workers and has been very well received, with many municipalities signing up to be part of the development of the app. SVID and Ocean also created a successful application for funds to further develop the app from the Swedish innovation board, Vinnova.

Read more about the project in the report (in Swedish).