SILK

Welcome to the SILK website

The Social Innovation Lab for Kent (SILK) was set up in 2007 with two ambitions. First, to provide a creative environment for a wide range of people to work together on some of the toughest challenges the county faces. And second, by drawing upon best practice from business, design and social science, as well as our own experiences here in Kent, SILK set out to establish a way of working that places it’s citizens at the very centre of everything we do.

So, what do we do?

We support and run projects ensuring that whatever outcomes are achieved are of value to Kent residents by involving them throughout. We aim to go further than traditional consultation with residents by involving people at every stage of our projects. We categorise our projects into three kinds: Strategic projects, Service re-design projects and Sustainable Community projects. This means that some of our projects focus on working alongside communities to design or re-design services to fit with the needs of the community. While in other projects our aim is to take the real life experiences of Kent residents to the policy makers. Central to our way of working is that we always involve those who the service or policy will have an impact on in the design of it. 

As soon as we are able to share information about our work we put it here on our blog and our projects are listed in the Project Space. Older posts can be found in the News Archive. Alternatively you can sign up to receive our e-newsletter.

For an introductory video about SILK please click here.

We are happy for you to use the material on our website but request that in all circumstances you attribute it to the name specified next to each piece of work. Prior to using any of our materials we also request that you contact us. Thank you.  

News

SILK Method Deck inspires Bournemouth University to create their own Method Deck

Came across this while having a spring clean of my emails, sorry it's a few months old....

Back in 2010 we met with Dr Kip Jones from Bournemouth University (see post about meeting here) and we shared with him a copy of our Method Deck. Kip got back in touch with us a few months ago to let us know that his colleague, Dr Lee Ann Fenge had been successful in securing funding from the Big Lottery Fund to create their own Method Deck.

Bournemouth's deck will "include information and activities to promote good practice with older people from minority sexual groups. The deck of cards will be designed to inspire and empower local communities, community organizations and health and social care practitioners to review and develop their practice with such groups. This will encourage an inclusive approach to practice, promoting recognition of the diversity within the ageing population".

We're really pleased to have been able to share our deck and inspire others. For more information about the Bournemouth Method Deck please see: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2011/08/25/funding-success-for-dr-lee-ann-fenge/

Guide for Community Buying Groups

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have created a Guide for Community Buying Groups. Parkwood's 'R Shop' features as a case study within the guide alongside a solar panel buying group, a project where people receiving personal budgets group together to buy services and goods, an oil buying co-operative and oil buying group. 

The guide aims to give practical information and advice on how to set up and run a community shopping group.

The guide can be viewed online here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/consumer-issues/docs/g/11-1430-guide-for-community-buying-groups 

Dementia project update

Sorry we've not added any new posts for the last couple of months, we've been really busy with the dementia project travelling across Kent and back again speaking to as many people and groups as possible.

We've been to day centres, peer support groups, dementia cafes, carer support groups, had individual conversations with people living with dementia, carers and also front line workers and professionals - we've managed to cover all six localities - and now we're really looking forward to the Christmas break for a rest!

The past few months have been amazing, we've spoken to so many people who have had so many ideas of how their experiences of living with dementia could be improved. From small ideas like re-designing a leaflet to bigger ideas like having a dementia drop in service or shop - everyone we've spoken to has been positive and just want things to be easier and simpler for themselves and others yet to experience the dementia pathway.

We've presented our initial findings and main themes to the Kent and Medway Dementia Collaborative Board and have started to re-visit some of the people we spoke to in the original round of insight gathering. We will continue to re-visit people to explore their initial ideas further, some great ideas have come up but in the new year we want to work with people to make some of these ideas real.

Once we've worked alongside people to come up with a few strong ideas that they really want we will begin to test them and see if they work in practice. Hopefully by the end of the project we will have some projects, services or products that have been thought up and designed by people living with dementia and their carers.

 

 

We would like to speak you about dementia...

As you may have read on our blog we are currently working on a project about dementia (for more information please click here). As part of this project we will be spending time with people who have dementia and their carers through the support groups that are organised across Kent.

What we particularly would like is to speak to people who either have experience of living with dementia or caring for someone with dementia but who is not currently part of any groups.

We want to give the chance to as many people as possible to share their experiences with us which is why we are keen to speak to people outside of groups as they may have had a different experience to those who are part of a support group. Then if people want to they can work alongside us to develop something that they want which will make the dementia care pathway a better experience for themselves and others.

We will be working on this project for the next year and have already started talking to individuals and groups so if anyone is interested or would like to be involved please get in touch with us:

Email: silk.team@kent.gov.uk

Phone: 01622 694657

Mobile: 07825 506 606

Address: 3rd Floor, Invicta House, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1XX