Chris Vanstone Workshop

Chris Vanstone from The Australian Centre for Social Innovation, Radical Redesign Team presented to about 20 enthusiastic attendees on the 28 September 2012 at RMIT. (We had to listen closely as a siren would periodically sound and Yoko would head off to silence it.)

We were seated in groups of about 4 and intermittently we were asked to work together on a question asked by Chris. One involved looking at a case study to determine how fidelity and spread was achieved by Les Mills (gym) or KIPP (education).

He outlined the Working Backwards approach, spoke about the development of 'Family by Family' and of their current prototyping of 'Weavers' (carers helping other carers) in their 'Ageing' project.

I really like the way Chris and the team work with the actual 'stakeholders', in this case, carers to understand their tears, fears, and capabilities. They then use that to empower the carers. I applaud the structures they then try and build to maintain and fund. I like the way they modify their program according to need e.g. in one of the programs racism was found to be a problem in one area more than another and was catered for accordingly.

I like the way it is on the ground, here and now, being implemented by a small dedicated team. It is replicable.