Co-creation of social services on the example of social hackathon: The case of Estonia

Abstract

Drawing on three semi-structured focus group interviews with a sample of 14 social hackathon participants in southern Estonia, this article reports the findings of participants’ experiences of the co-creation process in developing new services or innovative solutions to community problems by using a method of social hackathon. In general, hackathon was perceived as a creative and ‘out-of-the-box’ type of approach, a non-traditional way of thinking and an openness to constructing solutions in a new and creative way. Furthermore, the hackathon was recognised as a fitting tool for the social worker to find solutions in the community with service users.