Collaborating on Designing and Carrying out an Age-friendly Co-design Process

4.1. Planning and Recruitment

The different workshops were planned in close collaboration between the local municipal stakeholders and the researchers. The local stakeholders represented the Homecare unit, the Culture and Sustainability Department and the Techincal and Environmental Department. They were experts on their community as well as their own disciplines, and each represented different perspectives relevant to creating AFCCs. The research team contributed with knowledge on co-design processes as well as insights from some pre-studies carried out by one of the researchers. Pre-studies were conducted within the AgeArc project and were based on ethnographic fieldwork methods such as participant observation (Dewalt, Dewalt, & Wayland, 1998), interviews (Spradley, 1979), focus groups (Halkier, 2010) and workshops bringing various stakeholders together (Nørtoft et al., 2018). The interlocutors in this fieldwork prior to the co-design process included

administrative representatives of the municipality, healthcare workers from the Homecare unit and the nursing home, the Elders’ Society and residents of the housing area presented in this study

In the months leading up to the workshops, the planning of the co-design process happened via Skype between Denmark and Greenland. These meetings included establishing a common ground about the specific aim and objective from both a research and a practice perspective; obtaining an idea of the individual professional resources in the project team; recruitment of workshop participants; workshop location and times, roles, facilitation and suitable design activities. To develop a notion of what design activities could look like, the local team received some photos via e-mail of the previous project carried out by the research team in Copenhagen. They decided to add one of the photos to the invitation in order to communicate to the participants what kind of project this was. The workshops were scheduled to be carried out over two weeks and to be held in the morning.

Recruitment was in the hands of the Homecare management team and their staff who started telling the residents about the project when they went on their everyday care visits. Furthermore, the employee from the Culture and Sustainability Department joined them in one day of ‘knocking on doors’ with the aim of introducing herself to the residents while handing out invitations.

In preparation for the workshops, folders with assorted material such as the invitation and a pencil with the Municipality logo were prepared for each participant, which they brought back and forth between workshops. The name tags with the Municipality logo turned out to be in high demand and participants complained when we ran out of name tags with the logo.

Between workshops, process posters were created and displayed in the housing area. These consisted of an image of what had happened in the previous workshop as well as an open invitation to join the next one. After the last workshop, one participant humbly asked if he could take a large poster back home as he had spotted himself on it.

Figure 3: Invitation Figure 4: Example of process poster

4.2. Workshop Structure and Facilitation

Prior to the first workshop, the research team briefed the collaborators about three main principles to work by and to make explicit to the older participants: 1) We cannot promise anything – in order to create transparency and avoid disappointment in case we did not receive sufficient funding, 2) We need the older participants in this project – they are the experts of their own everyday life and we cannot carry out the project without them and 3) Everyone can take part – it is important to create a safe space with a democratic focus and with no right or wrong answers, and each participant’s contribution is acknowledged.

Establishing the three principles matterered tremendously for the facilitation part, as the majority of the participants did not speak or understand Danish. Hence, the communication with the older people happened primarily in Greenlandic, which meant the research team and two of the municipal workers (who do not speak Greenlandic) could not be sure exactly what terms were being used during the workshops when Greenlandic was spoken. The language challenge presents a limitation to conducting research in a context, where you do not speak the language, as you can never be sure that the translations are true to the original meaning. However, one might argue that it is also a strength, since this requires the translations to be completed on a deeper level, not dwelling on one word but rather negotiating the deeper meaning on a value-based level.

Qeqqata Kommunia, Makkorsip Aqq. 2, 3911 Sisimiut, Tlf: (+299) 70 21 00, Fax: (+299) 70 21 77, E-mail: qeqqata@qeqqata.gl Qeqqata Kommunia · Makkorsip Aqq. 2 · 3911 Sisimiut · Tlf: (+299) 70 21 00 · Fax: (+299) 70 21 77· E-mail: qeqqata@qeqqata.gl· www.qeqqata.gl Niviarsiap silataanut siunnersuutit

tigussaasut misilerarniarlugit sila-miippugut.

Workshoppit uannga ingerlanneqassapput:

Qeqqata Kommunia, Arktisk Aldring (AgeArc) og Arkitekskolen København

Tulliani ataatsimoortarfimmi ilusissat-ut siunnersuilusissat-utinik juunip 22-ani nal. 10 saqqqummiisoqarnissaanut kikkulluun-niit tikilluaqqusaapput.

WORKSHOP 20/06 2018

Scholars have previously noted that the exposure to outside conditions or departments often results in participants being more likely to generate new ideas (Brown, 2009). This view was shared by one of the Homecare managers who specifically asked not to be the facilitator, since she felt too close to the participants and thought they would open up more if another person, who was more of an outsider, was in charge. The main facilitator was chosen from one of the other municipal departments. Prior to every workshop, the team met for a debriefing outlining the overall activities of the respective workshop and again afterwards to debrief on what had worked well and what to take forward to the next workshop. The debriefing included both analysis of the design content as well as methodological considerations including facilitation, the structure of the workshop and how the design methods worked.

4.3. Workshops

A design process could or should never be linear, as stages overlap and iterations occur. However, for the purpose of this paper, the following table seeks to provide a brief and conceptual overlook of the co-design process.

The design activities were structured around mapping of likes and dislikes in the existing outdoor areas and identifying needs. Making collages and models and envisioning new ideas with the use of photos, pipe cleaners, wooden sticks, a map of the area and outdoor material from the local area, such as rocks and moss. Further, an on-site visit to the area took place, and lastly a workshop presenting and refining the new envisioned solution, including an exercise about giving the area a name and a new identity.

Figure 5: Mapping Figure 6: Collage and model making

149 Table 1: Workshop outline

Figure 7: On site visit Figure 8: Presentation and giving the area a name

AIM