Bromford LAB

Exploring Ways To Reduce Homelessness

Description: One of our strategic goals at Bromford is to ‘improve social justice and play our part in reducing homelessness’. It’s one of several ‘ambitious goals’ set out in the 2019-2023 strategy. Innovation & Design was commissioned by the Director of Strategy as part of a multidisciplinary project team to explore how Bromford might tackle the issue by working in partnership with stakeholders.

Actions: As part of a multi-disciplinary team which included colleagues from Strategic Insight we:

• Designed and lead the exploratory phase of this work with the objective of helping to better understand the root causes and underlying needs which surround homelessness;

• Co-ordinated and hosted a live lunchtime edition of our Bromford Lab Twitter chat, based around the provocation – ‘Is it really possible to end homelessness?’ The Twitter Chat was combined with a live panel discussion and inspiration session which were linked together with a live-streamed broadcast over Periscope;

• Curated the reading list for the inspiration session and facilitated a discussion around the articles with 13 colleagues;

• Following the Twitter chat, panel discussion and inspiration session, we designed and facilitated a workshop to synthesise the learning from the all discovery activity (including desktop research, shadowing and contextual interviews conducted by colleagues) into several high-level themes; 

• Used the themes and discovery insights along with other identified key data to inform the design of a one-day Hackathon. We were responsible for the overall design of the Hackathon including session planning and the curation and design of all tools and materials; 

• Facilitated the Hackathon and hosted workshop sessions. The Hackathon was attended by 30 delegates which included Bromford colleagues, local government colleagues, local counsellors, customers and stakeholders (including the Centre for Homelessness Impact). During the day we helped delegates explore key themes which resulted in the inception of 4 prototypes; 

• Worked directly with the Director of Strategy following the Hackathon to make sense of the exploratory work and define a clear approach to ‘playing our part in reducing homelessness’ to be presented to the board.

Outcomes: Through this work, we were able to:

• Facilitate the project team in the re-framing of our understanding of homelessness and the root causes of homelessness;

• Support the project team in providing the Director of Strategy with key insights to inform his board report whilst working directly with him to format a narrative to communicate an informed approach to tackling homelessness. 

Next Steps: The proposed approach will now be taken forward and presented to board with the objective of reducing homelessness and improving outcomes for those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in all its forms. This may result in Innovation & Design involvement in future connected work including the design and implementation of tests and pilots in a specific geographic area of operation.

Blog Posts: 

Hacking Homelessness: Hackathon Write-up – August 2019

Twitter Chat, Panel Discussion and Inspiration Session write-up – July 2019

Twitter Chat, Panel Discussion and Inspiration Session Live-stream – July 2019

Inspiration Session Reading List – Is it really possible to end homelessness? – July 2019