6 solutions & a company
for great living
We believe social challenges deserve the same rigour as technology and biomedical innovation. We're seeking investors and champions who think the same.
With older people and their families, our Radical Redesign Team has co-designed 6 new solutions in the ageing and caring space. Solutions that aim to enable great living.
Our ambition is to transform ageing and caring by prototyping these solutions, and then spreading them - across Australia and beyond.
The Great Living 6
- Areas: mental health
- Area: respite & carer support
- Area: ageing in place
- Area: social isolation & food
- Area: volunteering & working
- Areas: workforce development
- A Bit Better
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A Bit Better: A new solution in the area of mental health and depression.
Mindsets are getting in the way of anything getting better for too many people in caring roles and relationships. A pervasive mindset of ‘I can’t’ and ‘nothing can change’ means current services don't reach many of these people. This translates into high rates of depression and anxiety, negative health effects, and carer burnout.
A Bit Better enables people to feel they can change things for the better. It helps people shift their mindset from ‘I can’t’ to ‘I can’ through two new kinds of interventions facilitated by trained Peer Motivators.
- Weavers
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Weavers: A new solution in the area of respite and carer support.
Too many carers are stressed, and existing services only respond to symptoms by giving carers a short break. They overlook the resources friends and family could contribute to change the underlying situation.
Weavers reduces stress for carers by focusing on root causes. It transforms caring as usual by activating relationships and networks, drawing on the know-how of people with lived caring experience and focusing on great living. Not just caring.
We're currently preparing to prototype Weavers with partners in South Austrlaia.
- Sharing Zone
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Sharing Zone: A new solution in the areas of ‘ageing in place’ and intergenerational communities.
We found that the secret of ageing in place was strong local relationships.
Sharing Zones are neighbourhoods where you get to know the people who love what you love and the people who can help you with the little and big stuff. Sharing Zones are spread and supported by the Sharing Zone Co.
- Meals with Mates
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Meals with Mates: A new solution in the areas of social isolation, food and nutrition.
Like 90,000 older South Australians, Suzie lives alone. She wants great food and intelligent conversation. Existing meals services don’t deliver either.
Meals with Mates is a system to support the creation of a whole range of Gatherings. These Gatherings are all about bringing people together to enjoy good food and have fun with like minded people who share a common interest.
- Opp Store
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Opp Store: A new solution in the areas of volunteering, workforce participation and Consumer Directed Care.
Many older people we met were seeking help current services could not provide. We also met people seeking more meaningful ways to contribute to their local community.
The Opp Store catalyses local marketplaces of helpful help, shaping new kinds of supply and demand.
- Care Reflect
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Care Reflect: A new solution in the areas of care workforce development and person-centred care.
The caring workforce needs to triple over the next 40 years, yet 25% of carers leave the job in their first year.
Care Reflect is an organisation that partners with care providers and care certificate institutions to give care workers and cared for people the time, means and responsibility to develop more meaningful care.
We're currently prototyping the Care Reflect with partners in South Austrlaia.
A company for great living,
an engine for innovation
We believe a different kind of organisation is needed to generate and scale social solutions in the aged care space. An organisation that attracts a different kind of talent. That has a start-up culture. That can allocate the time, space and resources for innovation.
We’re proposing the Great Living Company, an organisation that will take the 6 social solutions introduced here to scale, and co-design, prototype, and scale many more disruptive solutions. The company would exist to move more people towards great living. It would be underpinned by four principles.
Co-production
People are the most important resource. Great living solutions tap into and build people’s skills, and aspirations.
Co-design
People are part of designing, testing, and spreading new solutions.
Co-operation
Great Living partners will openly exchange insights, know-how, and stories of success and failure as solutions are improved over time.
Committed culture
Great Living partners and the interdiciplinary team believe in risk-taking, creativity, redressing resource inequalities, and user engagement.
Working backwards
to great living
Our team blends design, social science, community development, and business to generate solutions to social problems. We come from different backgrounds but share a common innovation approach. We call it 'Working Backwards' because it works in reverse to most policy development. It starts with people.
Ethnography
To get to the Great Living 6 we spent time with older people, and their friends and family. We shared dinners, attended appointments and even went on holiday.
This work helped us understand what life was like for people in caring situations, what great living meant to them and to understand how some people 'lived great' despite challenging circumstances.
Co-design
The six ideas you see here were developed through co-design. We took our early ideas out to people people in their living rooms, sheds and kitchens. Our early ideas were often rejected.
Over two months we learnt where people saw value in solutions and continually re-shaped them until they were attractive and engaging.
Prototyping
Prototyping is the next stage for all our ideas. During prototyping, we’ll run a solution, at a small scale, to learn what works and what doesn't.
First we concentrate on prototyping to determine what interactions create behaviour change and then on prototyping the systems and business model to support and spread those interactions.
Start-up
Through prototyping, we identify the social value we will create and build a case for further investment. In start-up, we start creating social value.
Dependant on the solution, start-up could mean setting up a new business unit within an existing organisation, creating an organisation to transform existing services, or starting a social venture.
How you can help
We’re looking for partners in Australia and internationally who want to help drive forward the six solutions and the Great Living Company. We are looking for service providers, government departments, not-for-profits, individuals, and philanthropists who want to make a different kind of social investment.
Invest in
prototyping a solution
Be responsible for bringing a new solution into the world.
Investment
$50K-$300K into a 3-12 month prototype, depending on the solution.Return
- Recognition as a founding investor
- Media exposure
- A license to use the solution
- Learning opportunities for staff
- A documentary film of the solution
Invest in
scaling a solution
Take a solution to start-up and spread it to multiple locations in Australia and beyond.
Investment
Funding over 2-5 years to develop the systems and structures to spread a solution.
Return
- Change for a community you care about
- Recognition as founding investor
- Media exposure
- A license to use the solution
- Annual reports on change created as a result of your investment
Invest in the
Great Living Company
We’re still in the early days of planning the Great Living Company.
Our ambition is to start a new innovation engine in the aged care space. One that will prototype and scale disruptive innovations that move older people closer to great living - including the Great Living 6.
Investment
We're seeking expressions of interest. You will be investing in an innovation process, and an interdisciplinary team.
Return
- A seat on the governance board
- Capability building for staff
- Access to ongoing research
- First rights to adopt new solutions