Publications

The Inspirer - Tool Newspaper

Leapfrog has produced a newspaper called The Inspirer to share tools co-designed by young people to ensure adults in authority hear their voices

The young people, our “young designers” were key to the design process of this project. When they came together for a residential weekend in November 2015, they were sharing the frustrations and challenges they face when they meet with social and youth workers, and other adults they work with on a daily basis and trying to think of new ways to fix the problems they face. The young people were either in care, on the edge of care or young carers and therefore had plenty to say about how they felt about their experiences.

We co-designed diverse and flexible tools, which the young people named themselves; BADGE, Sound Advice, Topic Tally, Storyboard Contract and Target Control. The five tools were refined further by Leapfrog, while staying true to the young designers’ ideas. Details are contained inside the newspaper, which was edited and approved by the young people. Each tool appears alongside reasons to consider using it, tips for use and the thoughts from the young designers.

You can use the tools straight away; just grab a pen or pull out a page to get started. If you love the tools and want to use them again, they are all available (with the exception of Sound Advice because all you need is sound recorder) to print from the Leapfrog website www.leapfrog.tools. Some of them are simple enough that you could sketch out the basic tool yourself.

Keep your eyes open for updates on this project in the future because Leapfrog has big plans to share these tools across the country so that other young people can benefit from better encounters with the adults they work with and the services they represent.

The actual newspapers are in very high demand but we are sharing a pdf version downloadable from this webpage.

Keywords

newspaper, young people, the inspirer, tools, engagement, co-design