Since its launch in 1991, yourtown’s Kids Helpline has championed innovative ways to drive positive social change for children and young people. Over the past two years yourtown has been embracing human centred design and co-design principles to reform and reshape Kids Helpline.

We know that young people are aware of what they need from a service and this has driven our design process. When yourtown commenced the re-design of Kids Helpline we knew that we wanted to capture the voice of service users and young people. To do this we recruited young people as co-designers; providing them with training on human-centred design, research, and facilitation.

The Imaginarium is yourtown’s design lab that trains young people as service designers,
advocates, ambassadors and youth leaders. By empowering young people as co-facilitators, a safe space was created for voicing and exploring new and challenging ideas. Permanent feedback loops continue with these young people through the Imaginarium and Youth Advisory Groups.

During this presentation Jo will highlight the essential role that young people have played as co-designers and how training young people as co-designers has shifted their identity from being a consumer to having agency over a service. This agency has continued throughout the life-cycle of the service, with users continuously evaluating and re-designing the service, while resetting expectations for other services as well.
Most importantly, redesign has already inspired change in the sector, with calls for a design community of practice and sharing sessions on the process within the industry led by yourtown. yourtown is setting a sector-wide example by placing young people at the epicentre of future professional service redesign work. This shift from consumer to designer inspires a positive ripple effect, not just for the young people involved, but for the sector in general.