Our Commitment to Co-Design

Program Manager Veronicah Cohen with the Skilled Nursing Team at St. Paul’s Towers in Oakland, CA showing off their collaborative joy mandala during a June 2025 CMP site visit

One of my biggest joys at Creative Spark is the opportunity to collaborate and co-design with my colleagues. This process takes more time than working as an individual as we gather multiple viewpoints and then find the common threads that can be synthesized into cohesive and effective strategies and curriculum. However, I find this time to be well invested since only through the power of co-design can the meaningful connections occur that we see in our results. By combining diverse elements, we become like alchemists creating something unexpected and powerful.

Currently, Creative Spark is concluding a three-year project, funded by the California Department of Public Health, to provide training and curriculum designed to energize staff and residents at skilled nursing communities. This training inspires new approaches to meaningful programming with older adult residents. The intention of the project was to adapt our signature training, Explore Academy, to a direct care environment and then to translate that training to an e-learning model. Our goal is to scale the work of our small team and make our training accessible to everyone across the elder care industry.

By working with teams of Certified Nursing Assistants and Nurses from Spring Lake Village, St. Paul’s Towers, Webster House, Claremont Manor and Sunny View Retirement Communities, the Creative Spark e-learning experience has been created for and by the people who use it. We have collaborated with staff to hear directly from those our work is intended to support. We started by offering Explore Academy to Life Enrichment Directors, focused on designing creative, group-based engagement opportunities. Building on that, we adapted the approach for Certified Nursing Assistants, supporting them in bringing the same creative lens to one-on-one moments of care. Finally, we have expanded the training for Resident Service Coordinators, who balance both individual support and community-wide programming at affordable living communities. 

Throughout the process, we used on-site shadowing, focus groups and survey data to ensure the training was not only for those on the frontlines—but shaped by them. This iterative, co-designed approach turned the training itself into a point of contact that models how creativity can enchant and elevate everyday connections. Just like we teach in our training, we used real data and real voices to guide future choices. We listened closely and made sure the training met the teams’ real needs. Some of those needs included more interactivity and social support than is usually found in e-learning environments. We knew we had to construct not just an e-learning training course, but an e-learning community to address the isolation that working in senior living entails and to create a forum to exchange ideas and continue the co-design approach. The result is a creative, practical tool that’s shaped by the work it supports. 

This co-created, data-informed approach makes the resulting training experience more than just a learning tool—it becomes a source of inspiration. People told us it helped them reconnect with their creativity, support their teams, and bring new energy to their work. For example, Anne Chen Cooke of Sunny View said, “It has sparked a lot of creativity with what we can do for the residents and how we can continue to connect with them, interact and enrich their lives. It takes collaboration, support and engagement each and every day to provide the best quality of life for our residents.” Our journey to adapt Explore Academy to an online platform is a great example of how a simple point of contact—like a training—can become something meaningful, even magical, when shaped by the people it’s meant to serve. As we move forward with developing the Creative Spark E-learning Community, we will continue our commitment to co-design as the most effective method for creating an inspired and empowered creative aging training experience in 2026 and beyond.