Visiting PhD student experience in Stirling: Xiaolin Shen
“Hello everyone, my name is Xiaolin. I'm a visiting PhD student at the Division of Dementia and Ageing in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling, under the mentorship of Professor Richard Ward. I am visiting from the Design Department at Politecnico di Milano.”
My PhD project is exploring how service design approaches can be used to improve dementia friendly community development and ultimately promote well-being for people living with dementia. I am particularly interested in the Scottish context because there has been such a wide variety of work here to develop Dementia Friendly Communities. My PhD is not only concerned with the well-being of individuals living with dementia, but also the well-being of collectives like families, organizations, and communities. Here, Service Design is not just about designing material spaces or environments, but is also about understanding "design" as a way to navigate relationships, and bring about positive changes in local communities. It's about shifting from "designing for people living with dementia" to "designing with people" as well as "designing by the community".
I arrived in Stirling last November and have been here for 8 months. If I had to summarize my experience, I would say "I LOVE SCOTLAND, it's amazing". I really warmed to the inclusive environment for research, and the endless encouragement from colleagues both at the university and in the local dementia support community. I've had the opportunity to volunteer with Town Break (who provide dementia day care across the Stirling area) and have visited many wonderful groups and organizations around Scotland, such as Dementia Friendly Dunblane, Kirrie Connections, Dementia Friendly East Lothian, Alzheimer Scotland Resource Center in Alloa, and more. I’d like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to everyone who has so kindly hosted my visits and been so generous with their time. I've also had conversations and collaborations with people from Artlink, DSDC, Deepness Dementia Media, Bold, Stand, and others. Instead of saying I came to Scotland just to conduct research, I prefer to view it as an "adventure" that has transformed my perspective on dementia and how to conduct design research.
Recently, I've started developing design interventions using co-design workshops and small-scale design events where people with dementia and carers take an active role. I like to think that this design activity is growing from the Scottish soil, where I see myself not as a “designer,” but a collaborator with the creative individuals around me, who are shaping the future of services and support. Growing alongside the community, I've learned to embrace the nuances and complexities of dementia care, and I am excited to continue my journey, exploring the transformative potential of design in this context. My ultimate goal is to find ways to collaborate on service design that gives a voice to people with dementia in the design and delivery of the services they use but also to imagine what new kinds of support or innovations might help to transform people’s lives and promote well-being for the whole community.
If you’d like to know more about my work or get involved in some way, I would love to hear from you.
You can email me at: xiaolin.shen@stir.ac.uk