18/04/08: Social Innnovation Lab for Kent (SILK)
We are currently working with Sophia Parker (Project Lead) and the team at SILK to engage stakeholders in and build capacity around the programme of local innovation they are undertaking. We are also helping them develop a SILK future strategy and associated project strands.
Kent County Council sponsored the pilot of the Social Innovation Lab to achieve three goals:
• To ensure that KCC remains at the forefront of local government, with this shifting role for Councils and a new assessment framework in mind
• To develop a more creative approach to tackling some of the most tough challenges that the Council faces – an approach that explicitly starts with people and aspirations, rather than existing services and problems
• To understand how to build capacity to work in a truly citizen-centric way across the Council, on the basis of lessons learnt from SILK’s pilot projects
SILK has two core missions. First, it aims to provide a ‘safe space’ and a creative approach to tackling any number of strategic challenges, in order to develop new responses to apparently intractable problems, based on the realities of people’s lives. And second, SILK aims to build the capacity and skills of staff across the council – and indeed its partners – to focus on citizens and experiences, rather than services and organisations, when developing strategy and implementation plans.
Comments
This little piece of text says technically what GoddardPayne have done with me at Kent, but what it doesn't say is what an incredibly important source of support Gene and Caireen have been to the development of SILK. I love working with both of you!
From conversations designed to raise the ambition of the team and I, to facilitation of large scale workshops, to planning and forcing us to focus on the right level of detail to actually make things happen, to helping strategise and deal with the politics of local government, you've done a brilliant job: combining utter charm, steely determination and real know-how. Fabulous. SILK is lucky to have you there.
P.by Sophia Parker P.on April 28, 2008 14:43
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