The laboratory process organized by the Zemgale Planning Region has been very interesting, and various lessons have been learned during it:
- Involving the target group is important . Our lab process involved young people working with professionals. They know their own situation and that of their peers best. By listening to young people’s perspectives, professionals can better understand the world they live in. As a result, decisions made and services offered are more targeted and help achieve better outcomes.
- Lab meetings should be planned carefully, taking into account the workload, priorities and opportunities of the parties involved . The challenge in the initial phase of our lab was to ensure the involvement of educational institutions. We achieved this only later, by building contacts over a longer period of time and also by involving representatives of the education system in the lab organizing team.
- We realized early on that in our case, the lab would be a guided process . This means that a few key people collaborate with each other to plan, organize, and analyze the lab process, and then involve a wider group of community representatives in the creative process.