Citizen Action Lab
The Citizen Action Lab was really the early seeds and prototypes of what spun off eventually into the Action Lab. In these early think tanks we learned a lot about creating a space and practice that helps a diverse collective to think and do differently for systems change. Developed over 10 years in the mid 2000s, the Citizen Action Lab was a think tank for discovering innovative ways to connect people with disabilities to meaningful citizenship roles and employment opportunities in community. The Citizen Action Lab process aimed to help unlock creativity in Community Support Workers so they could strengthen their approaches to supporting people with disabilities to uncover and connect with all the things that make life great.
The Think Tank process was researched in Ben Weinlick’s graduate studies as well as with University of Alberta Community Service Learning Researchers that were part of Project Citizenship organizational change research. The Citizen Action Lab process experimented with and remixed disciplined creative problem solving processes, early Human Centered Design Thinking concepts, Theory U, and systems thinking ideas of Peter Senge, Margaret Wheatley and Otto Scharmer.
In recent years the process has evolved to be linked with MyCompass Planning and is now called MyCompass Planning Labs at Skills Society. In this new iteration, 8 trained stewards can go into community with their mobile pop up lab kits or use the Action Lab space, to help foster ideas and action that lead to better quality of life for people with disabilities. Paige Reeves of Action Lab has also trained other organizations in this process to use with breaking open creative thinking in human service organizations.
