They Just Get It: What a Year of Co-Design Has Taught Us
This September marks a full year since we started a co-design project focused on something really important to us at inCharge: strengthening the voice, view and access of the person at the centre of their own care and support.
And next week, that work starts going live.
We are delighted.
But one of the things I’ve learned over the past year is that co-design is about much more than the thing you eventually build.
It is about the conversations you have along the way, the trusting relationships you build and, the things people tell you that you weren't expecting to hear.
There is a shared knowing between families
We recently brought some of our inCharge families together again to talk about what matters to them and where we go next.
I talk to families regularly through our co-design community and individually, and when the opportunity arises, I love to meet them in person too. For me, co-design isn't just a workshop every few months. It is part of how we work.
Every family is different. Every person is different. The circumstances, support arrangements and challenges are different.
And yet, there is a solidarity between families who carry significant caring responsibilities that is difficult to describe unless you have experienced it.
They just get each other. They feel supported by just being together.
There is a shared knowing about what it means to coordinate support, manage PAs, deal with payroll, medication, insurance, policies, appointments and all the other things that sit around supporting someone to have a good life.
And then there is all the valuable knowledge you carry in your head about the person in your life.
You don't have to explain every bit of it.
That came through strongly in our conversations, and it reinforced something important for us: the inCharge community itself has value.
Building a community around inCharge was intentional, but we didn't have a grand plan for exactly what that community would look like. Perhaps that's part of co-design too. Rather than deciding what people need from a community, we can listen to what they tell us would actually be useful.
And they had plenty of ideas.
Families talked about sharing useful policies and contacts. They discussed the differences between employing PAs and working with self-employed PAs, and how we might help people understand those differences without assuming that one approach is right for everybody.
We talked about payroll, insurance and managing medication more efficiently. The practicalities of life if medication runs out.
We also talked about teams.
In many families, good PA teams become increasingly self-organising. People communicate with each other, swap shifts, solve small problems and take responsibility as a team rather than everything having to come back through one family member.
That might sound like a small operational detail.
When you're the person juggling all the other caring responsibilities, it really isn't.
Anything that reduces the amount of coordination sitting with one person can make a difference.
Tech for regular, ordinary people
Earlier this week someone described inCharge to me as an app for regular, ordinary people.
I took that as a big compliment.
Because that's exactly who we're building it for.
Technology doesn't need to be complicated to be valuable. It needs to fit into people's lives and make something that is currently difficult a little easier.
And to do that, the people building the technology need to talk to the people who are actually going to use it.
Apparently that isn't always the norm in tech.
For us, it is.
Our developers, designers and wider team hear directly from families and users. They hear what works, what doesn't, what people need and sometimes what we thought was important but really isn't.
We embrace that.
I don't want our team building features based on assumptions about people's lives. I want them to understand the context in which inCharge is being used.
Behind every feature is a person, a family and often a team trying to make good support work in real life.
The feedback that gave our team a boost
There was another part of the recent feedback that meant a lot to us.
Families talked positively about how we are approaching this work - about the leadership, empathy and ethical approach behind inCharge.
We are very grateful for that.
Building technology around care, support and people's personal information comes with a responsibility that we take seriously. Hearing that the way we are approaching that is being felt and recognised by the people using inCharge was a real boost for the whole team.
But co-design is a two-way street.
One comment summed that up particularly well:
“You've made it easier for us, so we're willing to work with you.”
I loved that.
Families give us their time, experience, ideas and feedback. In return, they rightly expect us to listen, act on it and build something useful.
That is the deal.
Quality of life is the point
Perhaps most importantly, our conversation kept coming back to quality of life and wellbeing.
Ultimately that is what all of this is about.
Not technology for technology's sake. Not care administration for administration's sake. Not collecting more information because we can.
It is about making the practical business of organising care and support easier so that people can focus more on living their lives.
Or as one parent put it, "knowing that you have the right pairing on PAs on shift is the difference of getting out of the house and maybe even getting to the cinema".
One year after we started this particular piece of co-design, the central person's view and access is about to go live.
It has taken listening, testing, changing things, challenging assumptions and going back again.
And we'll keep doing that.
Because there really is a need for this.
Our families tell us that. Our experience tells us that. And, increasingly, we're seeing the difference that getting some of these everyday things right can make.
Thank you to every family and every person who has shared their experience with us over the past year. And to all our wider supporters and stakeholders who boost our batteries and are willing us on! We see you!
For families:
Coordinating care is part of everyday life for so many people. inCharge was built with you in mind - and your first 30 days are completely free. You won't be charged until day 31.
Start your free trial
For local authorities and organisations:
If you work with families who coordinate their own care and support, we'd love to hear from you.
Get in touch about partnerships