Hello, I'm Esther ฅ(･ᴥ･)ฅ
I'm a Service Designer studying at Royal College of Art, London, UK. I worked as a freelance designer for 3+ years in the digital industry. Before then, I studied Visual Communication Design & Printmaking at Hongik University, Seoul, South Korea.
My design goal is to create a suitable solution for users by sympathizing with them and understanding their environment. I believe that people have the potential to overcome their problems on their own if appropriate supports are provided.
MEVo is a method for champions (Healthcare Professionals within the Local Maternity System) to facilitate dialogue with South Asian mothers to record, collect evidence and embed the voice of the mothers in the transformation process locally using a stage-based guided set of tools supported by the MEVo platform.
MEVo is developed with the vision to reduce the maternal inequalities faced by South Asian women in the UK. The main goals include understanding and embedding the voice of the South Asian mothers using a self-run and iterative framework for system innovation. MEVo aims to be adopted by Royal College of Midwives and National Maternity Voices to enable their practitioners; Midwives, Maternity Voice partnership chairs, and others within the Local Maternity Systems to embed the voice of the mothers in the service improvement, development, and evaluation processes leading to the transformation of maternity services locally. MEVo provides a stage-based method that is actionable, seamless, and guided along each step of the platform, with easy-to-implement culturally sensitive tools. The MEVo platform publishes the use cases of the method to collate a library of good practices that can inspire practitioners across the country.
Within the Local Maternity System, responsible for designing and delivering services to the population, we identified key stakeholders whose role is vital in embedding the service user needs, who we identified as champions.
Let’s meet the champions and understand their barriers embedding the voice of service users.
Meera, the Cultural Liaison Midwife at Alperton, feels overwhelmed and doesn’t know where to start. She is also frustrated with the service user's voice coming in as an afterthought and not being fully integrated from the beginning.
Jessica, the Head of Midwifery in Alperton and aims to complete the department’s strategic goals and improve maternal outcomes. She feels that the higher management is often inhibited to involve the service users.
Fionna, the local MVP Chair and does not have the skills and tools to conduct a co-production session with users while also being scared of cultural insensitivity when engaging with the users.
Mevo’s 7 stages include :
Stage 1 the objective is to introduce the method to champions through a website leveraging on live examples and e-modules.
Stage 2 - The objective is to build capabilities, planning, approvals, and creating a network of health care professionals and South Asian mothers.
Stage 3 provides tools to create a dialogue between health care professionals and South Asian mothers to understand both sides of the story, record evidence, and create ideas of plausible solutions.
Stage 4 provides tools for the self-reflection by the health care professionals, to collate the qualitative data and plan the changes that can deliver better care.
Stage 5 focuses on addressing the changes using the recorded evidence to embed the voice of the users.
Stage 6 is about sharing the changes with the HCP and mothers to build trust, responsibility, and relations.
Stage 7 focuses on creating a library of good practices that can inspire other champions across the UK.
In collaboration with Benash Nazmeen, Cultural Liaison Midwife at Bolton we have tested MEVo and run virtual workshops with her and South Asian Mothers to understand the usability of tools for initiating dialogue, collecting evidence, and analysing the data. Through the multiple sessions, we were able to build and test the tools to fit within the seven stages of MEVo.
Over the next few months, we wish to run the pilot at Bolton BL3 hub, set up meetings with the Royal College of Midwives and National Maternity Voices for collaboration, and reach out to more champions to endorse MEVo. Simultaneously we will work on expanding the tools to cover more communities by adding relevant images, languages, and scenarios. Finally, build the library of good practices, which is the most important outcome for Mevo as it highlights what’s working and also inspires more people around.
Through MEVo, South Asian Mothers get a safe space to express their needs and opinions and in turn get the opportunity to access services that help them prepare better for their maternal journeys.
Through the tools of MEVo, Meera (our champion) is able to understand the needs of the mothers and build a qualitative data set that can inform the plan for the department. Over time MEVo enables building capacities to deliver user-centered care at a local level aided by evidence along with the different timelines of the pregnancy journey. Mevo indirectly informs personal practice, cultural competency and highlights the good practices within the department, giving an insight into how to leverage that further.
The NHS will be able to increase access to responsive care along with an increase in antenatal education attendance, in the long run, MEVo aims to reduce the insurance costs in maternity.
A special thanks to Benash Nazmeen and her colleagues who have supported us through the project. We are also indebted to all the women who have supported us, from the streets of Alperton, Church Street, and virtually who have poured their heart out to us and shared their emotional maternity journey for our project. Our project is an ode to women from Ethnic Minorities who go through the troubles of life and bring a newborn child to this world. From women, for women, and by women. Thank you!
