Service Designer

Mō te tūnga | About the role

Based within the Māori, Partnerships and Communities rōpū, we are responsible for Human-centred design across Oranga Tamariki—Ministry for Children. As rōpū, we are committed to

• Forming partnerships with communities to support locally led responses that enable tamariki and whānau to thrive.
• Investing at the local level – supporting the aspirations of communities.
• Amplifying the voices of tamariki, whānau, hapū and iwi and ensuring they influence strategy, policy, practice, and operations across our organisation.

The Service Design team does not deliver services, but creates opportunities and initiatives through scalable, system-level experiments, design challenges and prototypes utilising a systems approach to helping tamariki and rangatahi Māori to thrive in the care and protection of their whānau, hapū and iwi.

Why come and work with us?

• We advocate for the aspirations of tamariki, whānau, iwi and communities so they can realise their rangatiratanga.
• We get to work directly with people in the community and we strongly support iwi-led/community-led design.
• There is a lot of positive change happening, we are often in the centre of it, and we can advise and influence major projects.
• We work in multi-disciplinary teams, so you have an opportunity to teach and learn equally.
• We are an awesome team, we have each other’s backs, we are really committed to being good treaty partners, and we are constantly innovating our own practice.

Working alongside the Service Design team and our stakeholders you will champion design thinking within our group and across Oranga Tamariki – picking up on trends, future thinking and drawing on research and developments in tamariki and whānau based design.

You will be joining an established and highly functioning Service Design team that is based out of Wellington and Auckland and you will get the opportunity to both lead and support design initiatives within the community and the Ministry.

On occasion you will be required to travel around the country to work with the community, our partners and stakeholders.

This role is based in our Wellington office. Due to the operational requirements and dynamic nature of the role, it will be beneficial for you to have the close support of the team around you. Candidates for this role are required to already be based in Wellington or be willing to relocate to Wellington for this opportunity.

Ngā pūmanawatanga ōu | What you will bring

Key requirements of the role include:

• Ensure the voices of tamariki and rangatahi are embedded in all Oranga Tamariki decision-making.
• Successfully represent the voices of whānau, tamariki, communities and iwi in ways that are culturally appropriate.
• Lead collaborative design while keeping te ao Māori and tikanga at the centre of everything we do.
• Expert level skill at building and maintaining relationships with all sorts of people both inside and outside the organisation.
• Significant experience in design thinking and tangata centered design and will have designed services that have been implemented in the real world.
• Experience working with tamariki, rangatahi and their whānau, hapū and iwi.
• Cultural sensitivity, awareness and have the ability to apply te ao Māori and Pasifika concepts, understand different audiences, gender and disability to ensure inclusive design.
• Excellent collaboration skills, with the ability to facilitate change at all levels of Oranga Tamariki.
• Ability to build and maintain stakeholder and client confidence.
• Demonstrated experience in growing and coaching others and developing their skills and confidence in design thinking; you will be keen to contribute to the team’s success by mentoring and coaching other team members.
• An in-depth understanding of design thinking methodologies and tools.
• High work standards and attention to detail.
• A knowledge of Te Reo and tikanga Māori would be an advantage.