To make the necessary progress, Powerful Families, Powerful Communities NJ has brought together a specific team of local and national experts to help guide our work.
We are using a combination of human-centered design methodologies as well as Equity Centered Community Design and Liberatory Design. Human-centered design is an approach that focuses on creating innovative solutions from the perspective of the people that will experience them first. Equity-centered design practices focus on inclusive approaches that take into account a history of oppression, existing power dynamics, and the needs and experiences of communities.
Through a partnership with IDEO.org, a premiere design and innovation non-profit, and other leading Child Welfare innovation partners we have developed an intentional approach focused on creating new accountability structures and new ways of delivering services through Co-Design.
Community members, families, and advocates become active participants in system design and accountability, putting the power of authoring and making decisions about the future in their hands.
In close collaboration with multiple diverse partners, we will create tangible and implementable solutions that lead to better outcomes for children and families, and, most importantly, aim to create the conditions for a new way of working in New Jersey, shifting the concentration of incentives and power away from institutions to community members.
