The Thriving in Health project collaborated with Dr Olivier Cotsaftis and RMIT School of Design to deliver the Safety Sensescaping project.
The key aim of this strategy was to use a human-centred design approach and co-design and iterative methodologies to explore how we might enhance the mental health and wellbeing of healthcare workers exposed to work-related psychosocial risks in the workplace.
The intent of Safety Sensescaping was to:
- assess the role design can play in solving abstract and complex problems like workplace mental health and wellbeing
- identify opportunities for design and innovation through design research
- prototype design concepts with the view of generating impacts.
Emerging insights:
- Safety Sensescaping design approaches and methodologies can address work-related psychosocial hazards like environmental conditions in healthcare settings
- the application of Safety Sensescaping design approaches and methodologies may also extend to the design of services, strategies, policies and products
- to protect and promote healthcare worker mental health and wellbeing, there is a need to embed workplace mental health and wellbeing in the design of work and workplaces
Resources for health services
The Safety Sensescaping Research and Engagement report and video were created for the Thriving in Health project. These resources provide a summary of design research (primary research with stakeholders, literature review, design precedent research and speculative design explorations) undertaken during the early phases of this strategy.