“Just being asked, ‘What do you need?’ – how wonderful is that?” shared a woman with lived experience of poverty who participated in last month’s Linker conference, supported by The Wyatt Trust.
Spanning three locations across SA, the full-day conference brought together service providers, lived and living experience participants and members of the Wyatt team to share learnings from the development of the Linker Network – an initiative that has been co-designed with the people it aims to help.
More than 120 people took part in the conference which was full of insightful reflections, heartfelt stories, laughter and occasional tears.
The genesis of the Linker Network, explains Keren Sutton, Programs & Impact Lead at The Wyatt Trust, was the organisation’s commitment to taking a partnership approach with people who have lived and living experience of financial hardship and inequality.
“The Linker Network is the culmination of co-design, testing and evaluating solutions to positively impact poverty in South Australia with the potential of bringing about systemic change,” Keren says.
“The co-design approach takes a lived and living experience perspective of how services can create safety and a welcoming space.”
Focusing on and engaging women over 50 and single parents, (groups who are disproportionately at risk of experiencing poverty), Wyatt began the process of co-design in 2022 and continued with prototyping in 2023-24.
The process included research, one-on-one interviews with more than 40 individuals, group workshops, prototyping activities and service testing. Seven service organisations took part in the network’s evolution.
The interviews were focused on understanding the challenges living on a low income brings and identifying what would be helpful from a new support service and what that service blueprint might look like.
Key needs that emerged included:
- Physical and mental heath
- Finding secure housing
- Financial security and surviving on a limited income
- Being a parent and/or carer
- Isolation and loneliness
- Navigating services and government agencies and the challenges of having to share traumatic stories over and over again.
Throughout the process, the work was guided by five principles:
- That authentic lived experience involvement is valuable, necessary and encouraged at all stages of the project
- That people with lived experience are viewed as having equal expertise and power
- That no decisions will be made about the service model before consulting lived experience colleagues
- That lived experience participants are reimbursed for their time and any out-of-pocket expenses
- That every aspect of the model is tested and open to change until a Linker service is developed that is robust, adaptable and transformational for women over 50, sole parents and carers.
At the conference, many lived experience colleagues shared just how much their involvement in the process meant to them and the powerful impact it has had on their lives. Several shared stories about how much their confidence had increased as a result of participating in a process in which their voices were heard, and their experiences respected.
“It’s helped us see there is hope out there,” a lived experience colleague shared during one of the conference panel discussions.
Launching a new co-designed network
The Linker Network, which launches in July, embeds a Linker project officer at five service delivery partner agencies across metro Adelaide and regional SA (ac.care [Mount Gambier], Centacare Catholic Country SA [Port Augusta], Kornar Winmil Yunti Aboriginal Corporation, UnitingCare Wesley Bowden and The Zahra Foundation), with a Relationship Manager based at Wyatt. A peer role and volunteer roles will also be considered and designed by clients engaged in the service.
“When networks of people or organisations are better connected, they are more cohesive, productive, and resilient,” says Alex Emmerich, who holds the role of Relationship Manager at Wyatt.
“A service network fosters coordination and collaboration. The Linker Network aims to provide a community of practice, coordinate support services for clients and identify system issues.
“Our Partner Network includes the partner agencies and Wyatt who participate in a shared approach to delivering the Linker service, address continuous improvement and advocate for system level changes.”
Read more in our Linker Conference Summary Paper 2024 (pdf).
