About The Auckland Co-Design Lab

The Auckland Co-Design Lab (The Lab) was established in 2015 through the Better Public Services Treasury Innovation Fund to provide a vehicle for central government to work collaboratively to tackle complex social and economic challenges in South Auckland.

Since 2017, The Lab has been co-funded by central government agencies and Auckland Council. The Lab is hosted by Auckland Council within The Southern & Western Initiative (TSI/TWI) and co-located between Auckland Council and the Auckland Policy Office.

The place-based focus of TSI and TWI ensures that The Lab’s work is grounded in the lived experience of whānau and the complexity of how policies interact and play out in practice.

Our connection to both local and central government means that we can leverage learning from the ground to inform strategic change at an agency and system level.

The Lab brings ‘insider’ public sector understanding and at the same time offers a ‘neutral’ and cross-sector perspective, especially on issues that do not sit with any single organisation or agency.

Why The Lab?

**Public sector innovation that is place, systems and equity focused.**

We know we need to work differently.

We know top down, service-led approaches have not been working to achieve equity.

To get different outcomes we need different starting points.

The current public service system has been shown not to work for those experiencing the most complexity and disadvantage. Policies and interventions developed at a distance from communities are proving insufficient to move the dial on entrenched social and economic challenges, missing critical opportunities to activate and leverage the potential of local expertise and capacity. Past policy approaches have often been built on deficit models which reinforce dependence, lower resilience and low trust in government. These issues are exacerbated by fragmented approaches across government, and a pattern of investment in short term crisis responses.

Early work by The Lab and TSI on the Early Years, Youth Employment, Education, and Housing, with whānau in South Auckland, demonstrated that to really shift outcomes a systemic focus that is locally grounded is needed. One that prioritises upstream investment, prevention and protective factors to enhance local leadership, capacity, resilience and social cohesion for longer term impact.

Since 2015 The Lab, in collaboration with TSI, has played a key role in building evidence for a more collective and ‘bottom up’ approach, connecting investment and policy decisions with what works and makes a difference to communities. This includes testing how government levers such as commissioning can be used to unlock the existing capacity of communities and to move investment towards supporting local innovation and responses at scale.

Over this time The Lab has shifted from training and reporting on co-design insights, to working alongside government partners, creating feedback loops that help ensure what works for communities is embedded and implemented through policy and operationally.

The Lab acts as an implementation and learning partner to government agencies, with a specific focus on how to enable place-based and community-led approaches that prioritise what matters and makes the difference to whānau.

How does The Lab work?

The Lab 2.png — **Our Innovation Methodology:** A model for practice based evidence.

In collaboration with The Southern & Western Initiative, The Lab supports place-based innovation for wellbeing. As well as drawing on existing knowledge and evidence, we try things out on the ground with whānau and partners, co-creating new practice-based evidence and building capability. We work alongside Māori and Pasifika-led teams and practitioners who work in culturally grounded ways with their own communities, testing and demonstrating compelling alternatives to the status quo.

The Lab has three key modes of working

1. Live Labs

Live Labs develop, execute and provide support to public sector innovation projects involving whānau, rangatahi and cross-sector partners. They not only produce local benefits for whānau and rangatahi, but build the capability and capacity of the public sector teams involved to grapple with complex issues in more place-based and systems-oriented ways. Some of the Live Labs we currently support include: Uptempo, Tamariki Wellbeing, Taiwhanga Rangatahi, Youth Economy and Healthy Families .

Live Labs prototype, test and demonstrate the role of government in enabling community-led responses, beyond services into ecologies of wellbeing. They model approaches to wellbeing and systems innovation, including experimentation, learning, and defining robust and rigorous approaches to evidence.

We are focused on initiatives that help make visible what the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy looks like when it is activated locally and shaped by rangatahi and whānau leadership. Our Live Labs engage with complex issues that highlight the integrated nature of equity and social, economic, cultural and environmental conditions.

2. Lab Learning

We support public sector capability and capacity to work in participatory, collaborative and strengths-based ways through practice sessions, learning programmes and platforms, workshops, mentoring/coaching and advice.

We promote ethical and Tiriti-based design and evaluative practice by providing tools, frameworks and platforms to help teams assess their current capability, and identify pathways for development.

Working with a range of learning partners locally and internationally we create platforms and opportunities for collaboration and learning across agencies, sectors and communities, with a focus how whanauand rangatahi-led innovation can inform policymaking.

3. Lab Insights

We share practice-based evidence about what works to enhance equity and intergenerational wellbeing in specific contexts, especially new starting points developed alongside whānau, rangatahi and communities.

We share and amplify what we and others are learning to inform policy and build stronger learning loops between policy and practice. This takes the form of tools and resource sharing, briefings, blogs, case studies, public presentations and walkthroughs, symposia, joining or building communities of practice, and local and international events.

Focus areas for Lab Learning and Lab Insight include:

Systems approaches to wellbeing, reconfiguring systems resources for healing, strengthening and responding,
Commissioning and investment for wellbeing capacity - activating local ecologies of support (spaces, places, systems),
Role of government in enabling community-led, people powered responses - beyond services,
Tracking & measuring what matters & makes a difference for whānau,
Evaluative practice frameworks that support place-based innovation.

The Team

We are a small team, nested within and working in partnership with The Southern Initiative and other external partners. The cross disciplinary expertise and experience of the team, our track record of working in complex and sensitive challenges and local and international partnerships combined, make us uniquely positioned to support more transformative ways of working in the public sector.

Angie Tangaere

Kaitohu Tangata Whenua

Angie Tangaere was born in Papakura and raised in South Auckland with a whakapapa to Ngāti Porou on her father’s side and Pākeha from Taranaki on her mother’s side.

Graduating with a law degree, Angie was keen to work at a community level and took up a role at Te Puni Kōkiri working with iwi and Māori trusts in South Auckland. Angie then worked with the Ministry of Social Development in South Auckland communities looking for ways to develop better services and engagement with communities and whānau, as well as with Māori health NGO, the National Hauora coalition.

She has a Masters in Māori and Indigenous Leadership at University of Canterbury Aotearoa New Zealand and is currently Kaitohu Tangata Whenua, Auckland Co-design Lab where she combines her experience with government agencies, community and whānau to develop and co-design whānau-led innovation initiatives, disrupting ineffective ‘business as usual’ systems.

Dr Penny Hagen

Director Tangata Tiriti

Penny assists organisations, teams and communities to take a systems-orientated approach to wellbeing.

Working across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Penny has supported cross-sector teams and communities to respond to complex social issues by connecting policy and evidence to the lived realities and aspirations of communities.

Penny has a PhD in participatory design and her work integrates approaches from wellbeing, health, design, youth development, systems, and evaluation disciplines.

In addition to co-leading the Lab mahi on design for equity and intergenerational wellbeing, Penny is the design representative on the Ministry for Social Development Ethics committee, on the Understanding Police Delivery Independent Panel, and Ngā Aho Kaupapa Whānau.

She is a strong advocate of social design and ethics practices that are of Aotearoa, supporting events and forums that develop and strengthen local practice and networks.

Dr Tze Ming Mok

Data & Insights Lead

Tze Ming is a mixed-methods social research methodologist with a background in human rights advocacy, social policy, and communications.

Born and raised in Mt Roskill, she spent a decade in London and Geneva, where she worked for the UN, Amnesty International, and NatCen Social Research, and completed a PhD at the London School of Economics. She returned to Aotearoa in 2017, where she is known for her political writing, anti-racism activism, and relentless sarcasm.

She is a council member of the Population Association of New Zealand, and has previously worked for the NZ Human Rights Commission, MSD, and the NZ Refugee Status Branch.

Jessica Trask

Systems Innovation Lead

Jessica was raised in Tauranga Moana on the whenua of Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngāti Pūkenga with ancestry to Ireland, Germany and England. She loves learning and is experienced at working in highly complex environments to build social capital to create more equitable systems.

She joins the team with a strong design skillset with particular experience in designing for equity, systems thinking and intervention, and domestic violence and child abuse. Jessica has worked across central and local government in a variety of capacities and has the experience, enthusiasm and the resilience required to work in shifting complex (crown) systems.

She is passionate about decolonisation and the role of Tangata Tiriti in working for racial equity and works at both individual and collective levels towards a Te Tiriti centric Aotearoa.

Eruini Hawke

Mātauranga Māori Capability Lead

Tirohia atu te Pane-o-Horoiwi
Whakapukepuke whakatikitiki ki waho rā.
He Tikitiki he Kawau, he Kawau he Tikitiki
Ka heke ki Tahuna Torea
He Tikitiki he Kawau he Tikitiki
Ka eke, ka eke ki te Waitematā
Tihei Mauri Ora!

Eruini was raised on his ancestral lands in Tāmaki Makaurau – on a little slice of heaven known as Takaparawhau, Bastion Point.
He spent his childhood years under the watchful eyes of his grandparents Rene and Joseph Hawke. As a mokopuna of Māori land activists, Eruini inherited the profound role of being a kaitiaki (cultural guardian) of his whenua, moana, and taiao.

With over twenty years of experience in environmental spaces – his career reflects his personal commitment to protecting te mauri o te taiao. His expertise is in native forestry, ecological restoration, and conservation, rongoā Māori, resource management, para kore, ecotourism, and biodiversity care.

He has a strong foundation in Te Ao Māori – inclusive of te reo me ōna tikanga, kōrero tuku iho and mātauranga ā-iwi. His inherent connection to the taiao is what drives him, and he ensures that his work is always guided and informed by the teachings of his tūpuna. He is also deeply committed to the service of his people and has worked closely with his own iwi and communities. A true child of Tāne Mahuta, he is happiest when his hands are in the soil.

Eruini is a proud father of two and has iwi affiliations to Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāti Maniapoto.

Kelly Maung

Programme Advisor

I te taha o tōku matua, no Maiama ahau. I te taha o tōku whaea, no Ingarangi ahau. I tipu ake au ki Titirangi ki nga waewae o Te Wao nui o Tiriwa, i te rohe o Te Kawerau a Māki. Ko Ngā Puhi rāua ko Ngāti Kahu nga iwi o āku tamariki.

Kelly has worked for over ten years in family, whānau and sexual violence prevention, supporting a number of innovative projects including Wellbeing in Waitematā, which explored how to increase community-led primary prevention of family and sexual violence, and the Auckland/ Aotearoa Humanity Project, a primary prevention storytelling campaign.

In recent years, much of Kelly’s work has focused on supporting organisations to understand their role and responsibilities as Tangata Tiriti and using models such as Te Tokotoru and concepts such as “duty to care” to explore systems, organisation, practice and service delivery change.

Riki-Lee Saua

Systems Learning Lead

Mauri ora ki a tātou! Mā ngā tapuwae o ōku tīpuna ahau e mōhio ai. He uri tēnei o Ngāpuhi, Te Roroa me Tainui.

Raised in the vibrant community of South Auckland, Riki-Lee has an extensive background in librarianship, learning support, cultural capability and research. Her career spans roles such as Kaiwhakarato Parongo Rangahau Māori, Senior Learning Specialist—Kaupapa Māori, Kaiako Reo Māori and Team Leader, Learning and Teaching Development.

Riki-Lee holds a Bachelor of Arts (Māori and Sociology) from the University of Auckland and a Master of Information Studies from Victoria University of Wellington.

In her role as Systems Learning Lead, Riki-Lee is dedicated to empowering learning through the Niho Taniwha framework, using it as a tool to influence systems change and foster a more equitable future for whānau.

Whaowhia te kete mātauranga!