This document describes the work of a radical redesign team that developed a new family support program called Family by Family in South Australia. The team is comprised of Carolyn, a social worker; Sarah, a social policy expert; and Chris, a designer. Through an ethnographic process of engaging with families, the team created the Family by Family concept where families help other families. They then prototyped and built out the program, developing training, roles, tools and materials. They are now looking to expand the team to continue developing this new approach to social challenges.

1. PLAY SLIDESHOW
Meet the team & see the work
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS 30 MAY

2. We’ve spent the last year working as the radical redesign
team co-designing with families in South Australia

3. Carolyn has a background in social work and had worked with
families all across South Australia, and in Africa. She is a singer,
a pilates instructor and has a dog named Billie.

4. Sarah’s a Dr in social policy with a background in sociology.
She’s worked for governments in the US, UK & NZ to engage
people in policymaking. She likes airports and Mexican food.

5. Chris is a designer. He’s spent 8 yrs designing new kinds of
public services in the UK & before that designed biscuits, crisps
razors & cameras. Chris likes making music & sausages.

6. Working with these families, we built a new kind of
family support program called Family by Family.

7. genius
idea!
It’s all about families helping families. It’s going to scale in
South Australia. See tacsi.org.au/designpapers

8. Now Carolyn is going to grow the Family by Family empire.

9. Chris & Sarah are going to develop a new radical
redesign team to take on challenges like ageing

10. That’s why we need you!

11. Mandatory 5 stage
process diagram
The radical redesign approach builds on Chris and Sarah’s
work as InWithFor in the UK. See inwithfor.org

12. swag
Our approach steals the best bits from design, social
science, policy, community development, and business.

13. That’s why we’re looking to recruit designers, social
scientists, policy people, community people, & business
people to help make the approach better.

14. Because the approach is new and we’re bringing different
kinds of people together, there’ll be time to work & to learn.

15. We’ll work with older people on a live project

16. We’ll learn together through weekly reflection time, regular
retreats, & classes taught by you and your new teammates.

17. You’ll be part of a team developing a first of its kind
curriculum for social innovation.

18. This is a special opportunity. You can count the number of
organisations working in this way on less than two hands.

19. You can count the number of places where you can learn to
work in this new way on less than one hand.

20. Here are some of our favourite photos from the Family
project.

21. LOOK
PHASE
We found families to work with, and got to
know them by spending time in their homes

22. First we designed offers and materials to get
families interested

23. Chris putting flyers into letterboxes

24. Meeting families at a stall in a local shopping
mall

25. Our mobile family recruitment stall

26. We ran a free family festival to meet people living
in the local area

27. Carolyn dressed up as an orange costume to
attract kids. As you can see, it worked

28. We had got to know over 15 families over takeway
dinners. Honey chicken was the most popular dish.

29. Hungry Jacks was the runner up

30. We used games and activities to get a better
understanding of family life and family stress

31. We spent up to two days hanging out with some
families doing ethnography

32. To get a different perspective on family life, Chris
spent time with families living in a country town

33. Sarah engaging a young person as a
‘family journalist’

34. anthropologist
Back at the studio we tried to make sense of what
we’d learnt from spending time with families

35. We created a sounding board of people from child
protection services, academia, NGO’s & government

36. We shared our analysis with the sounding board

37. Analysis done, we wrote 11 drafts of our first public
paper - Going for the good life

38. You can
download it
here...
tacsi.org.au/
designpapers

39. CREATE
PHASE
Based on what we learnt in the LOOK phase we developed
ideas for lots of different ways to enable families to thrive

40. It all started with a brainstorm

41. An inspirational visit to the bookstore with our
design intern Raasti

42. An inspirational field trip to analyse the family
experince of the zoo. With bonus roo petting.

43. Some early ideas for ‘The Family Exchange’ a
precursor to the Family by Family concept

44. Carolyn testing our early ideas with a family

45. Our early ideas were too opportunity focussed for
some families

46. We developed a second version of our ideas

47. ...and tested them with families. They worked
slightly better.

48. We developed a third iteration of our concept - to
find & train families to help other families

49. The first “Family by Family” materials & messages

50. The Family by Family concept worked much better
with families. Finally we were getting somewhere.

51. Practitioners liked the Family by Family concept
because it drew on family experience

52. Our sounding board liked Family by Family as
it activated new resources to support families

53. PROTOTYPE
PHASE
We ran a small version of Family by
Family in order to improve on our ideas

54. To recruit families we tested five different versions
of materials until we got to some that worked

55. We trained 10 ‘sharing families’ at two weekend
training camps

56. Chris introducing some of the key ideas to families
at the first training camp

57. Carolyn helped families prepare to help other
families by role playing interactions

58. ‘Active listening’ workshop for adults & kids

59. The families helped us get more families involved
by running pop-up events

60. We connected families through link-ups

61. We supported families through a weekly dinner,
and designed learning games for them to play.

62. Carolyn played the role of the coach. It was her job
to support families in a link-up

63. We designed materials to help coaches help
families. They had to be very easy to use.

64. We developed 15 verions of our measurement tools
until we got to something that worked well

65. By the end of prototyping we’d tested & improved....
Offers like...becoming a sharing family
Roles like...the coach
Experiences like...the training camp
Tools like...measurement & coaching aides
Communications like... flyers, brochures, websites

66. BUILD
PHASE
s
he
T ry
to
From what we learnt through prototyping we built an
investment case, and a project story

67. business analyst
We worked with analysts to model the investment
Family by Family would need to go to scale

68. We developed proposals for potential funders

69. We made a documentary film of the project to
share the story

70. The families gave feedback on the first cut of the
film and now we’re preparing for a public launch

71. LOOK
THE END
If you want to see more, watch the video from
the LOOK & CREATE stages of Family by Family