Lecturer, April 2009 to October 2011 Design for health and wellbeing, therapeutic environments, workplace design, post occupancy evaluation, community engagement, design for social innovation, codesign
Valerie is an interior designer with a background in workplace and healthcare design. She uses mainly qualitative and ethnographic methods to explore the transactional nature of relationships between environments (built, natural and socially constructed) and behaviour. With a particular interest in how design can promote and enhance health, wellbeing and community cohesion her research also explores how design methods and tools can help engage local communities and facilitate creative knowledge exchange.
Over the past few years Valerie has been working closely with health services, local councils and third sector groups to explore the challenges associated with engaging patients and citizens in co-creating accessible and appropriate public services. She has also facilitated workshops with small businesses, local communities and schools focusing on redesign of specific environments to enhance health and wellbeing.
A book documenting the activities and specifically the new techniques and approaches developed under the HEIF4 funded Creative IDEAS project
In preparation for the PROUD project this workshop brought together designers and craft-workers from across the region to help shape the commissioning process of a new creative space in the Storey
Imagination Lancaster, through Creative Ideas, are involved in an ongoing co-design project run by Lancaster City Council working with local communities to co-create a new community plan for the Skerton area of the city
Design and the Big Society brought design researchers together with others from politics, journalism, technology and finance to consider the relationship between design for social innovation, socially responsive design and the ‘big society’ agenda as promoted by the government. Imagination through Creative Ideas facilitated this to day workshop and also participated in the lively discussion
Instead of focusing exclusively on GP responsibility for commissioning, the focus should be on the broader communities that could be involved in commissioning (communities of co-creation) as an integral part of the consortia or federations, and not only as a point of reference for individual projects
This report summarises findings from our research project 'Design for flexibility and change with Healthcare Service Providers' focused on the implementation of Practice Based Commissioning in North West England
The Designing Spaces for Creative Collaboration and Co-design workshop brought together a multidisciplinary group of designers, designer makers and craftspeople to spend a half day within the shell of the 3rd floor ‘art school’ space in the Storey Creative Industries Centre, generating design proposals for refurbishment of the space
A workshop facilitated by Imagination with one of the local GP practices, involving a multidisciplinary group of stakeholders exploring the issues and possibilities of integrated care