With a background in photography and design, I have always been a visual thinker and communicator. I am originally from Seattle, WA, USA and spent four years at the Rhode Island School of Design studying Graphic Design. After another four years of working as a visual designer, I found my way to Service Design and the RCA. I have since developed a deep desire and curiosity to understand users and complex systems, and Service Design has taught me how to create and deliver the right solutions to the right problems.
Sarah Morse
I am excited to see what life after the RCA has in store as I get to continue exploring the world through the lens of Service Design. As I begin to look for career opportunities, I am eager to continue to understand ways of promoting positive social change through design; I believe that is our main responsibility as designers and creators.
What I enjoy the most about the Service Design approach to problem solving is that it forces you to put real people at the center of your creative process. In order to create effective solutions, you must gain a deep understanding of the context in which you are working as this allows you to frame the right problems and ultimately find opportunities within them. I hope to find a role that allows me to take a deeper dive into this idea, and allows me to explore new tools, techniques, and methods.
Context
There is a strong component to human nature that compels us to help others, and with growing forced displacement around the world, there’s an increasing desire to help, and people are turning to non-profit organisations to donate their time and money to a cause. These organisations rely heavily on outside funding and internal volunteers to operate, but while there isn’t a shortage of people wanting to volunteer, funding is a major problem across the sector. Many find themselves having to prioritise securing partners and investors, which often results in them having to deprioritise the needs of their volunteers. In doing so, they can sometimes fall short of delivering the real impact or experience that volunteers expect from working with them, and these false expectations can have negative affects on their wellbeing.
The Journey to Wellbeing
For this project, we worked closely with volunteers across the aid sector to understand to what extent this happens and determine ways in which organisations might better support them despite the systemic barriers in place.
Our process began with interviewing volunteers and mapping out the actual experience of volunteering, starting with motivations and expectations. We learned that everyone has different motivations to volunteer, and expectations around what they will get out of the experience. However, the context of the activity is extremely important. On one hand, there are certain factors that heavily influence the outcome of the experience, such as the kind of work one does, and how much support is available from the organisation one is working with. And secondly, there are certain elements within the activity itself that are important, such as whether or not one is able to develop and use ones skills, or if one actually enjoys the activity. Based on whether these factors and elements are present or not determines the outcomes of the experience, and this is what results in either a positive or negative influence on one’s wellbeing as a volunteer.
Defining Wellbeing
Though our interviews, we also wanted to understand how volunteers defined wellbeing from their own experiences, and learned that it came down to four factors: feeling valued for the skills you contribute, feeling as though you're doing meaningful work, feeling connected to a global community, and having balance between other responsibilities. Volunteers shared with us that when they offer their time and skills for free, they do expect to get something positive out of the experience. That is why it is crucial for organisations to understand which of these factors are most important to an individual, and ensure that they will be part of their experience working with them.
Context
As of June 2021, 5,352 offenders have been recalled back to custody after being released on probation. Yet, a majority of these recalls are not linked to a charge of reoffending and are easily avoidable. This represents an important goal for all parties involved as it can have a significant impact on a person on probation’s mental health and future prospects, it deteriorates resettlement outcomes for probation services, and it is costly to the Ministry of Justice.
In partnership with the MoJ, local charity Catch22 has created a 1 year pilot programme that aims to reduce the number of individuals returning to custody because of non-compliance with their license conditions. Catch22 has proposed that through the role of an additional member of staff, known as a Navigator Mentor, a person on probation’s risk of reoffending and returning to custody can be reduced if they receive intensive and individually tailored support as they reenter the community.
Our Project
Our role in this project was to collaborate with Catch22 in conducting our own research in order to uncover new insights that we think can be incorporated into the delivery of the pilot. After 10 weeks of working closely with prison leavers and probation staff, my team has created Conversation as a Practice which helps to facilitate meaningful dialogues between Navigator Mentors and service users. This framework aims to enhance the impact of Catch22’s pilot programme by enabling Navigator Mentors to build positive perceptions around probation services among prison leavers as they begin their probation period, as well as equipping them with the skills to create more meaningful relationships with People on Probation from the start.
Conversation as a Practice has been implemented into the pilot programme by Catch22 and is currently being tested with service users as part of the pilot.