SILK Team:
There are currently three members of the SILK team: Emma, Vicky and Demetria. To contact any of the team just click on their name in bold.
As programme manager, I get involved in everything! I have worked in Kent's Voluntary and Community sector for a youth led community action charity and more recently as trustee Director for Kent Children's Fund Network. My time in Kent County Council has leaned towards multi-agency and cross-sector working in roles, amongst others, in the Youth Offending Service and as Compact and Voluntary Community Sector officer.
I have been part of the SILK team since 2007. I am the Project Manager for the Bulk Buying and Timebanking projects, working with our associate Jo Pullen (activmob). I have worked within KCC for some years now and have been with the Policy Team for the last 10 years.
I had a fundamental role in the Fathers Project and the Just Coping Families project, and I am currently exploring how to roll out our SILK Skills training, tools and ways of working to a wider audience.
I've worked with SILK since 2009, I started here on a work experience placement after graduating but am now a full time member of the team.
I've have just finished working on the Parkwood Bulk Buy report and participatory film and have designed the Houses as Homes and Better Homes: Older Peoples Housing Needs and Aspirations reports. I am about to start working on a document which will demonstrate SILK's strategic and practical learning over the past 4 years, and I am working with Vicky on the dementia co-production project where we will be attending dementia support and carer support groups across Kent over the next year.
SILK founders
Joe and Sophia were the founders of SILK and were involved in the early years of the SILK project.
I am co-founder and director of Engine. Over the past few years Engine and Kent County Council have supported each other in pioneering a new approach to public sector innovation. I am a passionate advocate of the social value of design in improving people's lives. I have recently collaborated with Demos to research and publish The Journey to Interface, a pamphlet setting out the role of user-centred approaches to service design in the public sector.
Having started my career as a civil servant, I went on to work at the Design Council, before becoming Deputy Director at London thinktank Demos. Since leaving Demos in 2006, I have worked in a freelance capacity with a wide range of organisations including the IDeA, the RSA, and NESTA. Over the course of 2007 and 2008 I worked closely with KCC, building the case for SILK and doing the early work in setting it up. My passion is in connecting real life experiences to the way that policy is developed and implemented. As well as my practical work in this area, I have written and edited a number of books on this theme, including The Other Glass Ceiling, The Journey to the Interface, Unlocking Innovation, and Just Coping: a new perspective on low income families.
