Hope Project helping to develop new life-saving tool

Members of Second Step’s suicide prevention project, Hope have been working with designers to co-design a potentially life saving tool, currently dubbed ‘Weather Report’. 

The tool will combine a physical and some kind of digital element and aims to give men aged between 35 and 55 a new tool to help track and reflect on their feelings in a positive and accessible way. This is something that’s so important to a group of people who traditionally find it really hard to talk about how they feel.

Collaborating with Studio Meineck

Following research funded by the South West Creative Technology Network, Hope Project clients have been working with Studio Meineck (a social design studio in Bristol) to develop initial ideas for the tool.

Having begun in February this project is just starting to explore potential metaphors (including weather) and how a tool could work for this group, who are traditionally underserved by mental health apps and services. As the tool is co-designed with this group the ideas for what it is and how it works will be influenced by their preferences.

They’re aiming to prototype elements of this tool by the end of the year and we’ll keep you posted on it’s development.

How does Co-design work

Co-design involves the people who are being designed for, right from the start. It acknowledges that they know best about what they need and that that knowledge has value. Rather than assuming what people want designed, you ask them and then build that in from the very beginning.