MEETING THE NEEDS

1. MEETING THE NEEDS The interaction between elderly and special needs youngsters Toon Abcouwer / EmőkeTakács Finsenstraat 17h NL 1098RE Amsterdam E: toon@abcouwer.nl T. +31621216321

2. Meeting the needs Loneliness is a fast growing phenomenon. It occurs on different places in contemporary society. Target groups in our initiative are the elderly and children in Special needs education for which loneliness is an actual practice. Our initiative aims at developing a new way of bringing together groups of elderly with children following special needs education. By bringing them together we can create a win-win situation where both groups can fulfil the needs of the others, leading to among others more social contacts, improved care for elderly and higher learning outcome for the children, based on higher level of personal attention for the kids. Innovation

3. Meeting the needs Design approach As the initiative is exploring new fields of cooperation between specific groups of stakeholders our intention was to apply the design thinking approaches to identify the problem space, the solution space as well as methods to deal with linking these spaces together. Many of the known design approaches are clear in the process that should be following. Crucial in this respect is the Ideation phase but in general this phase is not worked out well. It made us develop a new approach that corresponds with the best practices in Design thinking combined with theoretical approaches Value creation of Dorst and the C-K theory of Hatchuel. In an initial workshop new ideas were explored to see whether or not this approach delivers relevant results. In the second phase we schedule several other workshops.

4. Meeting the needs Process of thefeasibilitystudy • We willapply a newlydeveloped design approach based on • best practices in design thinking • thevaluecreation approach • The C-K theory • Partners interviewedtoassuretheir cooperation in the next phases of the project: • Orion foundation for special needs schools forparticipation in • Katholieke Bond van Ouderen -> a nationalassociationforelderly • University of Amsterdam (via initiation of students research projects • Politiciansactive in severalmunicipalitiestocheckingrelevance

5. Meeting the needs Scaling up prospects Relation to the urbanscape The issue of loneliness mainly occurs in an urban setting. Societal contacts are way easier to maintain in the country side with small villages and a higher degree of social responsiveness. This development is further reinforced by the impact newly initiated governmental policy has on urban life. Especially budget cuts both in elderly care as well as in special needs education influences the higher degrees of loneliness for our target audience. The stakeholders we interviewed agreed on our assumption that actions have to be initiated to deal with this societal issue. Crucial is not to focus on individuals but on group/ association /school level /…. Crucial for the success of our platform is the stakeholder involvement. The test run of our design workshop showed that stakeholder involvement works well. Building the platform with student involvement also asks special attention.