Co-designing for tech justice: lessons from working with young people

Camden Giving is a participatory funder based in the London Borough of Camden. It’s one of 3 justice-led community organisations taking part in Catalyst’s Tech Justice Road Trip project. The project is exploring what liberatory technology could look like. 

As part of this work, Camden Giving is researching, and co-designing, Elevate, a digital decision-making tool for grant making. It’s been doing this with 2 community panels made up of:

• a diverse group of people from the community who have previously been involved in grant-making with Camden Giving
• young people with no grant-making experience.

As the first phase of the project ends, Camden Giving is sharing what it’s learned so far about the benefits, and challenges, of using a co-design approach with young people.

This resource was based on an interview with Puja Bose, Camden Giving’s Alumni Manager.

What co-design is

K. A. McKercher is a co-design facilitator, trainer and professional supervisor. They define co-design as a way of working that:

“(co-design) brings together lived experience, lived expertise and professional experience to learn from each other and make things better – by design.” 

Its main principles are:

• sharing power
• prioritising relationships
• using participatory methods
• building capacity.

It's easy to assume that we know what's best for others, rather than looking to people with lived experience for guidance. Co-design includes organisations and communities working together from start to finish. It could be to design a service, product or process. 

Co-design centres people who will use, or be affected by, what’s being created. It facilitates their active and ongoing participation. And it makes sure that their voices and experiences shape what’s produced.

Why Camden Giving is using co-design

There are 3 reasons why Camden Giving is using co-design in its tech justice project. 

1. Co-design aligns with its way of working

Camden Giving believes that inequality and poverty in Camden can be addressed by the communities experiencing them. It’s always had a citizen-led, grassroots-oriented and bottom-up approach to its work. And Camden has one of the highest child and youth poverty rates in the country. This makes it particularly important for young people to be partners in the organisation's grant making processes. 

2. Co-design shares tech justice’s principles

Co-design and tech justice both centre participation, equity and inclusivity. They highlight individuals’ and communities’ skills, experiences and assets while avoiding being extractive.

3. Co-design prioritises equitable, inclusive processes that produce better outputs and outcomes

Using a co-design process to create tech (one where the people who’ll be using it define the tool’s main features, capabilities and actions) can lead to technology that’s more accessible, enabling and empowering.

Challenges of co-design

Power dynamics can be difficult 

Young people from marginalised backgrounds don't usually have the chance to participate and share power in decisions that affect them and their communities. This is their normal. 

So when you're facilitating a co-design process, it's important to be conscious of the power and influence you hold. And because you're older, they’ll often look to you for an opinion. Share facts but hold back from sharing your opinion.

“ Encourage young people to think for themselves. Show them that their opinions are valid. If your preferences influence the decisions they’re making, then it’s not a co-designed or participatory approach.” - Puja

It takes time

Co-design can be more time-consuming, and costly, than taking a top-down approach. Building trust with people that are wary of organisations and institutions takes more effort. But it produces more ethical tech that meets communities’ needs.

For example: the Equal Care Co-op’s social care platform. The platform was created in response to failings and imbalances of power in the social care system. It gives people receiving care choice and control over their support.

It takes effort to identify a genuinely diverse group of participants 

To hear the full range of voices of under-represented young people, you need to find those who are seldom heard. Camden Giving has a relationship with a group of referral partners in at-risk youth centres who help them do this. So, when the organisation started recruiting for their latest panel, it sent the criteria for panellists to these partners. Half the new panellists joined through these partners. 

“We’ve seen the impact of putting in the time and effort to reach people from diverse backgrounds. It achieves really good results. We were able to reach people we otherwise wouldn't have been able to if we’d just done outreach and publicity through our social medial channels and website.

For instance, working with the NW5 project helped us recruit 2 young people from the North of the borough. Traditionally, most our young panellists have been from the South, where there’s more community organising. And for some of these panellists, if they hadn’t had the support of a youth/case worker, they would have thought twice about participating” - Puja

Benefits of co-design 

It builds community members’ skills

Taking part in a co-design project increases young people's skills and personal power. Being listened to, and renumerated for their time and expertise makes them feel valued. 

Youth panel members have:

• improved their decision-making, project design and technology skills
• worked alongside other young people 
• shared and discussed ideas
• made decisions that have an impact on poverty in the borough.

This has boosted members’ confidence, and provided them with transferable skills for the future. Some have progressed to doing more work and taking on leadership and decision-making roles.

“We've seen amazing results with many of our young alumni. They’ve started as 12 people in a room of strangers trying to figure out what's going on. Now they understand  data around youth poverty and violence. They get some of the nuances of grant making. They feel confident in their voices and realise that their decisions matter.” - Puja

People input at every project stage

Co-designing generates participant feedback throughout the design process. This is more valuable than a disengagement producing top-down design approach.

Co-designing enabled Camden Giving to create every aspect of Elevate with the panel. For example, accessibility, language used in the tool and deciding whether AI should be used to summarise funding applications. The final product reflected the panel’s knowledge and experience. 

“Every bit of feedback they gave us was reflected in Elevate. The panel have used it to score and rank 13 applications and awarded £100k to 4 incredible projects supporting young people. This wouldn’t have happened with a more top down approach.” - Puja

More information on co-design

• Youthrex have produced a toolkit for co-designing with young people, Co-designing with young people: the fundamentals 
• Rosie Patterson, an animator, looks at the assumptions, challenges and benefits involved in co-production How co-designing with young people can change your practice 
• Georgia Booth is a feminist activist and freelance gender justice consultant. She shares reflections on barriers and enablers to meaningful engagement and co-ownership in: From engagement to co-ownership: tips on co-designing with adolescent girls and young people 
• Barnardos describe the methods they’ve used to make co-designing engaging and inspiring: That’s a rap! Three creative methods for co-designing with young people 

Thanks for speaking with us, Puja!

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Image credits: Naima Browne, Camden Giving alumni member