Co-designing an Integrated Health and Social Care Hub With and for Families Experiencing Adversity

INTRODUCTION: Integrated care research often fails to adequately describe co-design methods. This article outlines the process, principles and tools to co-design an integrated health and social care Hub for families experiencing adversity. RESEARCH METHODS: The Child and Family Hub was co-designed in four stages: (1) partnership building and stakeholder engagement, (2) formative research, (3) persona development and (4) co-design workshops and consultations. Local families, community members and intersectoral practitioners were engaged at each stage. The co-design workshops employed a human-centred design process and were evaluated using the Public and Patient Engagement Evaluation Tool (PEET). RESULTS: 121 family participants and 80 practitioners were engaged in the Hub’s co-design. The PEET highlighted the co-design team’s satisfaction achieved by community members working alongside practitioners to generate mutual learning. Resourcing was a key challenge. DISCUSSION: Human-centred design offered a systematic process and tools for integrating formative evidence with lived and professional experience in the Hub’s co-design. Applying community engagement principles meant that a diverse range of stakeholders were engaged across all stages of the project which built trust in and local ownership of the Hub model. CONCLUSION: Co-design research with families experiencing adversity should attend to language, engagement methods, team composition and resourcing decisions.