'A creative future for care at home' involved a collaboration with Scottish Care to explore and co-create a series of possible scenarios for care at home in Scotland based on trends from the present. We supported care providers and frontline staff to creatively explore a future vision for care at home using a future-oriented design approach. Our design methods offered a way to integrate perspectives across the sector, transform challenges into areas of opportunity based on current trends and make tangible the way in which care at home could change in the future. Our approach and outcomes aim to build capacity in the sector and enable Scottish Care to continue this conversation by engaging a wider audience to collectively shape and progress a preferable vision for care at home in Scotland.

The challenges facing the care at home sector are well-known and increasing. There is a need for more funding, more recognition for care staff, and for a shift towards a preventative, relationship-based and personalised model of care that will support people to live independently for longer and lead to better outcomes for those being supported. Work to date has focussed on identifying the challenges and underlying principles that will enable this shift, however what is missing from these discussions is a creative and dynamic approach towards communicating and illustrating a vision for care at home in a more tangible way and to involve key stakeholders, care at home providers and frontline staff, in the process of re-imagining a better future.