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.
