Conversations are an everyday element of health and social care practice, and improving them could lead to widespread positive impacts on care provision. We present three initiatives to improve difficult conversation through three case studies, each using co-design to produce tools for later use by practitioners. The approach taken is knowingly risky, as tools can be difficult to co-design and difficult to encourage others to use, leading to failures as well as successes. Alongside specific empirical insights from the case studies we discuss the benefits of co-designing flexible tools for ongoing use and adaptation by practitioners, and the implications of this approach for the sustainability and impact of co-design initiatives.

This paper presents ongoing research from the first of a series of projects examining how collaborative design approaches can raise aspirations and increase opportunities for people throughout the North West of England, in support of the UK Government's Industrial Strategy. The paper presents a case study where design practitioners and youth workers have worked together to co-design a prototype for an intervention that aimed to foster positive engagement between young people and businesses in Burnley in the North West of England. The paper outlines a number of insights that have emerged from observing and participating in the co-design process including the importance of trust in partnerships, skills and learning of the team, steps needed to sustain the project, and the challenges and opportunities of codesign. The paper concludes on how a "place-based co-design approach" may potentially contribute value to more resilient and sustainable communities.

This paper explores how co-design approaches contribute to support, learning and work opportunities for young people who are socially and economically disadvantaged because of where they live in the UK. The paper presents a project in which an arts organisation, design researcher and young people living in three rural areas in the North West of England came together to co-design opportunities for rural youth. The approach benefitted all involved, delivering outcomes such as new networks, youth spaces, paid work opportunities and transformed the arts organisation's practice. The approach also broadened awareness of rural opportunities, shifted views on living and working rurally, increased confidence, developed skills and created informal career guidance spaces. The paper advocates for design research to address place-based socioeconomic inequalities, therefore "levelling up" and rebalancing the learning, support and work opportunities for young people, therefore investing in peoples' lives through collaborative design.