Course: Design for Futures |Service Design, System Thinking, Co-Design Workshop | 7 weeks | With Francesca Castioni, Tetania Dubovenko and Tobias Mangersnes
Design Brief
“The EU has granted Ukrainians who flee the war a blanket to stay and work throughout the 27 nations for up to three years. They also receive social welfare and access to housing, medical treatment and schooling for children (BBC,2022).”
How can we ease the process for Ukrainian refugees to start a new life and get into work quickly in Norway?
The main challenge for this project was that we couldn’t speak directly to the refugees as they are a vulnerable group of people.
Research Summary
To understand the refugee situation:
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Interviewed an expert - local NAV office, Municipality decision maker, NOAS, Red Cross, etc.
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Read news articles every day to keep us updated about war, refugee situations and changes in regulations and laws.
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Ran an investigation on social platforms to understand the kind of information the refugee needs.
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Developed a tool to understand the state of mind of refugees.
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Shadow & Observation: One Ukrainian team member applied for collective protection at the welcoming centre Råde.
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Research, case studies, mappings, etc.
Insights
Too much information
Multiple information sources are provided by various stakeholders from different perspectives, creating an overload of information and confusion for the refugees arriving in Norway.
“OMG I want to get my passport back and go back to Poland” - Refugee
Lack of transperancy
Uncertainty about their current process stage and waiting time leads to a lack of transparency.
Reliability on word of mouth
As a result, they seek information on Facebook and Telegram, as well as from individuals who have experienced the process.
Analysis
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The main issue is the lack of comprehensive information for refugees. This gap creates additional problems, contributing to the original issue.
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The pent-up emotions and experiences accumulated during their journey significantly influence refugees' expectations and perceptions of other services.
After sharing our findings, we discovered that our insights aligned with what NAV had correspondent independently.
Together with NAV, we recognized that this project presents a valuable opportunity to bring stakeholders together and initiate discussion on collectively addressing this challenge. We aimed to use the opportunity to share and exchange knowledge, perspectives, and challenges from individual entities and as a unified organization.
Design Outcome
NAV invited us to present our findings at the "New in Norway" life event organised at AHO, where we led a co-design workshop with 30 participants from 13 key organisations supporting refugees in Norway. The session aimed to identify and prioritise essential information for refugees at each stage: arrival, placement, and establishment.
The participating organisations were: National Police Directorate, UDI, IMDi, Directorate of Health, The Norwegian Institute of Public Health, The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority, The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS), Kommune, Digdir, Skatteataten, etc.
Co-design workshop
The co-design workshop aimed to involve stakeholders from various sectors collaborate and to create a comprehensive journey to guide the Ukrainian refugees in Norway, focusing on three key stages: Arrival, which involves immediate steps such as registration; Placement, which pertains to settling in and finding accommodation; and Establishment, which includes understanding rights and pathways to employment. The workshop was designed to promote open communication among different stakeholders, using the identified needs of the refugees to formulate probing cues at each stage of the process.
Co-design workshop outcome
“... Some of it is like: this will be confusing and frustrating. We should be honest about that” - Arrival Team
“The refugees are told to contact the municipality, but who exactly is that?” - Placement Team
“How can we put a greater emphasis on why and not just what. There might be a need for onboarding into this phase of the journey.” - Establishing a new life Team
Conclusion & Reflections
After our project timeline concluded, NAV took over the stewardship of the project and continued its development.
Co-design workshop is a powerful collaboration tool that can bring stakeholders from different sectors together, guiding them to work collaboratively towards a shared goal. It can also improve communication among sectors, facilitating teamwork to achieve common objectives.
This project was nominated for school AHO Awards for the spring 2022 semester.