For the past two months we at the Design Council have been after your creative ideas that could help improve the health and wellbeing of children in their early years and their families. Happily, we’re now in the process of selecting twenty projects to prototype in Southwark and Lambeth this autumn, out of the 200 applications received.
We opened the Call for Ideas because we believe some new approaches are needed to alleviate parents’ stress and anxiety, encourage daily play and stimulation for children, and tackle issues of isolation for families.
But first, let me back track a little to explain where we’re coming from. The Challenges team at the Design Council, believe design, when used well, can solve complex problems and improve everyday life. We bring people together to design new answers to society’s most complicated challenges. Past projects include reducing violence and aggression in A&E, and helping people to live well with dementia.
During the first five years of life, kids develop the foundations for an understanding of themselves, the people around them, and the world in which they live. There has been a lot of investment going into the early years provision, but we can’t see enough evidence that a substantial difference is being made. Children are still starting school without a fair and equal start in life, and we want to do something about it.
We started the Knee High Design Challenge to support the development of new ideas that will really make a difference. We have been working with families, healthcare professionals, and early years experts across Southwark and Lambeth, identifying where the opportunities lie to make the greatest impact.
So now what? Well, we’re on the look-out for ideas that could alleviate parents’ stress and anxiety, encourage daily play and stimulation for children, and tackle issues of isolation for families. Since launching the Call for Ideas we’ve been really encouraged by the response and have met people from all sorts of backgrounds and professions with real investment in this work.
As part of our Knee High Project we have a pop-up play space in Gabriel’s Wharf, Lambeth. We use it as a drop-in venue for people to ask questions about their ideas for the challenge, and also host free fun family workshops that link in some way to our three briefs.
One of our recent workshops was in collaboration with a local primary teacher. We created a stimulating learning environment by filling the space with everyday objects – and, of course, energetic children. One quiet little girl scuttled off and assembled peas and shaving foam in a small plastic tub and turned to offer her mum a delicious desert. I could see that allowing children to explore, role-play and experiment in the space was making them think and imagine – and how simple games can help children enjoy learning, and that teaching new things needn’t be a struggle.
However during this challenge we have met parents who lack confidence and understanding around what is described as “invisible” development, where a lack of feedback from a young child makes it hard to see the results of their investment in their child’s early development. This can be extremely frustrating and concerning, yet it is through day-to-day interaction, love, play and experimentation that children develop the vital capabilities needed for later life.
Some little ones can’t see the funny side of things that grown-ups might find amusing (for example, a fish with four different sized googly eyes and a feather for a gill). Sometimes children can think we are laughing at them; it’s then a case of explaining that what they have done is so inventive that maybe we’re laughing because we’ve been struck by how freely they have created something.
And that only reminds us of the power of a child’s imagination. And what this project is about.
Words: Mollie Courtenay and Ella Britton, from the Knee High team, at the Design Council.
