What we do
Based in Glasgow, Space Unlimited is a social enterprise and registered charity, working across Scotland and beyond. We facilitate experiences to help young people, organisations and communities to design and take action together.
Our Process
We have pioneered youth-led enquiry as a catalyst for generating fresh insights and encouraging a more collaborative approach to change.
Our approach builds peoples’ confidence in their capacity to bring about change, and to create fulfilling work and lives. It is particularly effective in helping to break the spiral of exclusion and non-participation.
It’s surprising what happens when young people and adults explore problems and try out solutions together.
Our process creates space – for insights, shared responsibility and stronger relationships.
Why we work this way
We are living in times of unprecedented, continuous and unpredictable change.
It’s becoming clear that ‘system-wide’ change is needed to address the environmental, economic, social and political challenges. For example, in health and in education, changes are needed in the behaviours and responsibilities of both health practitioners and patients, of both educators and students.
We offer people an experience that helps to develop the skills and mind-sets that support system-wide change. We help young people and professional organisations to master the art of changing together.
Changing together is more than just an inspiring experience. It builds resilience. Changing together is a powerful way to sustain the resourcefulness of businesses, communities and individuals.
We believe the world needs resilient individuals, resilient organisations and resilient communities.
The Art of Not Knowing and Why It Matters
How we measure impact
Taking Account of Change is our framework for understanding the impact of our work.
We see it as a ripple effect: it starts with young people using their strengths, skills and ideas and gaining more confidence in their abilities. Then when adults and young people work together, both sides become more confident in their capacity to bring about change. This in turn improves relationships and leads to more shared responsibility and more whole system thinking.
We believe in measuring what we can influence.
We have identified 12 outcomes that reflect what participants consistently tell us are the most significant benefits from our approach. Our publication Taking Account of Change – measuring the impact of Space Unlimited explains our framework using data from the projects we ran in 2012. The diagram on pages 12 and 13 maps the impact over time from the initial inputs to the contribution our work makes to Scotland’s national outcomes. Click to read below.