First weeks of our IIPP placement experience at Camden Council
Weeknote n.1 — IIPP student policy placement by Ada Li, Jacob Finlay and Valentina Papic
Term 3 (of 3) of our Master Programme in Innovation Public Policy and Public Value has started and what better than doing it at Camden Council!
The Master of Public Administration programme from the IIPP-UCL is teaching us the competencies and critical skills needed for purpose-driven organisations in the public, private and civil society sectors — take a look here for more information about this unique post-graduate degree — . This last term consists of a placement to gain insight into how public sector organisations work, develop practical experience, and begin to apply what we have learned on the course.
A bootcamp, a kick-off, several meetings and even a walking tour experience around Highgate happened during the last two weeks, together with many other things that we want to share with you. So, below is a quick round up of what we (Jacob, Ada and Valentina) have been up to in our first two weeks of our placement with Camden Council. Enjoy!
The IIPP bootcamp
We attended a four-day bootcamp at IIPP between the 24 to 27 of April 2023. During those intense days, all the placement-groups met together to prepare for our last academic activity of the MPA. We learnt about the placement’s timeline, expectations and assessments (super important!). However, more importantly, we had time for our initial meetings as a team, where we learnt more about each other and how we will work together to achieve our goals and expectations.
The challenge and its kick-off
Our placement challenge for the next 7 weeks is Harnessing participation for a Community Wealth Fund (CWF) for Camden, starting on the 2nd of May. We will navigate this challenge with the supervision of Rowan Conway, our superstar professor of Transformation by Design IIPP Module, and the support of Dan Wainwright, Research IIPP Fellow, Kieran Whiteside, Policy Designer at London Borough of Camden and our hosts, the Strategy and Policy Design team at Camden.
First steps
After onboarding and induction, we worked on understanding the landscape. We had access to a wide selection of documents about the organisation of the council and the proposed CWF, including the IIPP Report launched in November 2022 (which we recommend reading!). Also, we had the chance to meet Alejandra Díaz, head of the Design Team, with an amazing public design background, and also Nick Kimber, Director of Corporate Strategy & Policy Design and CWF sponsor. With them and Kieran, we could answer our first questions about the CWF getting a better understanding of the challenge. Finally, thanks to Kieran’s support, we arranged the meetings with internal and external stakeholders, and we finished this Friday 5 of May with a clear plan for the next two weeks.
That’s it from us this week…until the next sprint. Have a lovely weekend!
