Living Systems
Designing for women on their path to self-sufficiency
Masters Thesis Project
In collaboration with Kelly Nash, M.Des 2011
Women with young children are a growing population experiencing homelessness. Transitional Housing services, like HSH1 provide shelter and educational programming aimed at fostering the development of skills necessary to attain and maintain basic needs. The benefit of safe shelter provides those experiencing homelessness an opportunity to focus on emotional, social and academic development.2
Our partnership with HSH started by asking how designers might develop supports for women as they transition to self-sufficiency. We now interpret this union as a case study examining the intersection of design and public service. Our goal is to understand and implement design solutions that support the service delivery of HSH.
Observations and findings
We started by trying to understand the service and client journey at a high level, with the intent to support the client as she transitioned out of HSH. The research process clarified that the primary opportunity lie in supporting the transformation currently underway within the house to strengthen the service offering of HSH.
Synthesis
HSH is comprised of dedicated and caring staff that currently face challenges to deliver the service they intend. Lack of protocols and artifacts, unclear expectations, and no defined roles lead to staff’s confusion and uncertainty about how to invest themselves in their daily work.
Areas for Consideration
1. Procedures: protocols for standard procedures
2. Knowledge Transfer: increased client engagement on goals and teachable moments
3. Adaptability: navigating boundaries, fluctuating dynamics and handling frequent emotional changes from clients
4. Culture: unified vision and ownership over job
It appears that most staff members previously maintained peripheral roles within the service. Responsibilities are unevenly distributed. All this is leading to a service inconsistently delivered to clients, strained relationships between staff members and between staff and clients.
Next Steps
With HSH currently undergoing change, the time is ideal to shift the focus of HSH from permanent housing to the development of skills needed to attain and maintain housing. The Six Core Competency areas identified by the staff will guide this partnership moving forward. Our goal is to continue working with HSH to create the appropriate prerequisites (processes, attitudes, artifacts) to support the successful co-creation between staff and clients of their service.
An ideal state for HSH is a service with actionable goals, providing its staff with the autonomy needed to comfortably deliver the service to clients under conditions of continual growth and change. HSH management would assume a peripheral role providing continued support for the service structure, leaving the service delivery as the primary responsibility of the staff.
notes:
1. Due to privacy concerns our partner organization is refered to as HSH.
2. United States Interagency Council on Homelessnes. “Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homel essness 2010.” (6 December 2010).
| Individual Contribution to come |
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Project Details Collaborators Designed at Carnegie Mellon with Kelly Nash / IxD Class Masters Thesis project Project Duration 9 months / 2010-2011 |
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