This project has provided opportunities for our organisation to be innovative in how we design and develop services with community. A large part of this was having the willingness to slow down and invest in shared sensemaking. Rushing to define the project and prioritising control over learning opportunities may have been a quick solution to mobilising the work – but this would have hindered both collaboration and innovation. Instead, group members demonstrated a willingness to lean into the unknown, be ambitious, and to learn how best to tackle this shared challenge together.

The task group’s willingness to relinquish control, champion diverse voices and employ a range of engagement methods has resulted in a co-designed service that better reflects the diversity of the people who will frequent it.

The cafe's commitment to centering lived experience at all decision making levels is also innovative.

This project is now in its establishment (or implementation) phase, after having spent the past 18 months generating ideas, designing solutions and developing a costed model and business case.

Latrobe Health Assembly has partnered with Lifeline Gippsland, who will lead the establishment and operations of the service.

We are currently in the 6-month establishment portion of a two year pilot (fully funded). Work has commenced on establishing strong governance for the project, including an unwavering commitment to centering lived experience at all levels of decision-making. A site is leased, with fitout underway, and the recruitment of staff is in progress.

We are on-track for the service to open its doors in January 2023.

This project has been deeply collaborative. The idea came from a forum which brought together local and state-wide providers, people with lived experience, carers, and other experts. A smaller taskgroup was formed to lead the work which included consumers, carers, service providers and government. The consultation and co-design process included input from hundreds of relevant stakeholders. A number of companies have also approached us to support the service (eg. via donations, volunteering)

Co-design participants praised the opportunity: “To have people listen to you and take into account your life, real experience is what’s needed. If I can help the next generation by contributing to this, that's wonderful", "an adventure like this cafe is needed in the Latrobe Valley". Government and service providers have also commended the process and remain eagerly involved in the establishment phase.

The impacts of the co-design process have been very positive. Tangible results have included the high rates of engagement and the collection of quotes and testimonials from co-design participants and other participating community members and service providers.

The success of the process is also reflected in the fact that the model developed has been endorsed and funded for a 24-month pilot.

Evaluation of the service's impacts will be monitored closely by an external evaluation team. This team will measure the impacts of the cafe using an outcomes framework that has been developed by people with lived experience. Indicators of success include: guest experience surveys, engagement in art and stories, low staff turnover, occupancy rates, number of unique and return visits, demographic data, number and nature of partner organisations, quality improvement framework, emergency department data, hospital data, and staff/volunteer feedback.

Doing extensive community engagement during Covid presented a range of challenges, however these didn’t curb the team’s commitment to delivering a diverse and inclusive process. Hundreds of people with lived experience, carers, and other key stakeholders still shared their views on what the service should look, feel, and be like. This required diverse engagement methods including in-person, SMS, email, phone, and virtual meetings.

Undertaking this work required a commitment from leadership and the task group to lean into the unknown. At times this group’s early work was slow and exploratory, but the work being done was crucial. By building rapport, engaging key stakeholders early, and investing time in shared sensemaking, the group laid strong foundations which continue to deliver benefits.

Rushing to define the project and prioritising control over learning opportunities may have been a quick solution to mobilising the work – but this would have hindered both collaboration and innovation. Instead, group members demonstrated a willingness to lean into the unknown, be ambitious, and to learn how best to tackle this shared challenge together.

Learnings from this project are already informing other projects within our organisation.

To help ensure that these learnings are documented and shared more widely we are working on ways to disseminate insights, including publishing reflections like this one.

The co-design process and model developed for our community are not overly complex. Rather, their success has hinged on our ability to genuinely commit to the time, flexibility and relinquishing of control that is required to truly collaborate on co-designing a place-based intervention.

Some key learnings have been that:
- Collaboration takes time. Invest early in shared sensemaking to ensure the vision is shared, understood and has strong buy-in. Rushing this may speed things up initially but will lead to challenges down the track.
- To benefit from the power of diverse conversations and inclusive decision-making, we need to work in diverse and agile ways