Co-Design Practitioners
KEY INFORMATION
Dates: 7 April - 30 October 2026.
Format & Duration: Fortnightly sessions over 7 months.
Delivery Mode: Online.
Co-Design Maturity Model Level: Apply/Integrate.
About this program
Co-Design Practitioners is a transformative professional development program that builds your capability and confidence to lead participatory design processes. Through a thoughtfully designed blend of learning approaches, you’ll join a diverse community of practitioners who share your commitment to ethical, inclusive design.
This seven-month learning program is designed to take your collaborative design practice to new heights. Led by Dr Emma Blomkamp, this course is ideal for those with several years of experience in participatory design contexts who are ready to deepen their expertise and strengthen their skills to tackle complex challenges.
Building on your existing knowledge, this program integrates experiential learning, creative techniques, and ethical considerations crucial for public and social innovation. Drawing from real-world experiences across Australia and Aotearoa, we explore the joys and challenges of co-designing with diverse communities.
This course is tailored for practitioners actively applying co-design in public purpose settings, providing a supportive environment to refine your skills, expand your toolset, and push the boundaries of participatory practice in your specific context.
Course overview
WHAT’S INVOLVED?
Alongside 10 to 15 other dedicated professionals at the apply/integrate level of co-design maturity, throughout the program we will explore:
Designing and leading effective collaborative activities with a wide range of people
Navigating power dynamics and expanding inclusive engagement
Developing strategies for building trust and combating consultation fatigue
Implementing remote engagement and online facilitation techniques
Assessing and communicating the impact of your co-design initiatives.
Co-Design Practitioners is hands-on and fully immersive. Expect a mix of activities to support learning-by-doing, complemented with academic rigour and grounded in the reality of working with diverse communities and organisational constraints.
Co-Design Practitioners is a series of seven modules, each with a facilitated online training session, peer coaching, and self-directed activities. The live training sessions consist of individual, pair and small group activities interspersed with presentations and facilitated group discussions.
The program takes place over the course of seven months, allowing time to apply, iterate and reflect on the tools, techniques and principles, in order to develop skills and embed learning in practice. In addition, each participant has access to individual mentoring with Emma Blomkamp.
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Core topics include:
Facilitating diverse groups
Power and participation
Relationships before recruitment
Creating with communities
Sense-making and decision-making
Just enough evaluation
Reflection, resilience and resistance
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We cover one module per month following this typical structure:
Week 1: preparatory reading/activity (individual)
Week 2: facilitated, structured online training session (whole group)
Week 3: self-directed learning and practice, with recommended resources (up to you)
Week 4: reflection and peer coaching (small group)
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Co-Design Practitioners has been designed specifically for creative professionals seeking to better engage a diverse range of people to generate more equitable outcomes.
Participants are expected to be experienced practitioners at the Apply or Integrate level of Co-Design Maturity. The majority of participants tend to work in or with the public purpose sector in Aotearoa or Australia. Although this is our shared context, we have welcomed participants from other countries (including Malaysia, Indonesia, US and the UK) and the private sector.
To get the most out of the program, participants need at least a few years of relevant professional experience and a current context where they can apply, integrate and extend their co-design practice.
Many but not all participants have a background in design (e.g. communications, user experience, architecture, product or service design) or social innovation. Previous participants demonstrated that other relevant experience includes: community development, public health, international development, participatory arts, people-centred research and evaluation, community and stakeholder engagement, innovation labs and social enterprise startups.
Co-Design Practitioners strives to be accessible, inclusive and welcoming to all participants. We hold space for difference, including from lived experience, and support different learning needs and preferences.
Participants need to be fluent and literate in English to participate successfully in the program. You also need a computer and reliable Internet access to interact with us online. Participants with any accessibility requirements are invited to communicate their needs and provide honest feedback so that we can enable all to fully participate.
Co-Design Practitioners is limited to 16 participants per year. We run a selection process (see below) to ensure that participants have the right sort of experience, work context and commitment to make the most of this experiential professional development program.
Access and payment options
Payment options
If you are successful in securing a place in the program, we will send you an invoice to pay your registration. International participants can receive an invoice free of GST in another currency if based outside of Australia. Learn more about our payment options.
Scholarships
We offer two scholarship places for First Nations practitioners for each of our courses, and a discount for participants with an income under $70,000 AUD per year. Please see our scholarships page for more information and to apply.
Access
When you register, we will ask if you have any access needs or learning preferences. You can view a summary of how we learn, what platforms we use and what accessible features we provide by default here.
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