Choosing Digital
During the COVID-19 pandemic the social care sector, along with the rest of the world, had to move to digital-based interaction. This was a very different way of connecting for the majority of social care workers and the young people and families they work with.
During 2021 Research in Practice developed Choosing Digital, recognising the opportunity hybrid digital practice has to be child-centred and relational, when used in a considered and thoughtful way.
We worked with young people, parents and carers, and social work professionals to create Choosing Digital. A digital place hosting a collaborative decision-making tool, a toolkit of ideas to support digital practice and an organisational framework to help embed successful digital practice across social care organisations.
In 2022 Choosing Digital, in partnership with the North West ADCS, received funding from the DFE to be developed further. This second round goes further in prioritising young people’s voices by immersively understanding the digital ecosystems of care-experienced young people. We expect existing outputs to change and thoughts to be provoked.
Role
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User Researcher
Listening to people. Designing ways to hear people. Understanding what people are saying.
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Service Designer
Understanding the problem space from every angle. Finding clarity in the complex. Designing the service users need.
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Content Designer
Creating a visual identity. Creating form. Creating function.
Research
Research takes a user-centred approach. We talk to all stakeholders in the project; young people, families, social care practitioners, supervisors, workforce development leads and principal social workers, through workshops and interviews.
Understanding
There’s much understanding to be done in this problem space; it’s a rich, complex, multi-layered environment. We’re learning, simplifying and iterating all the time.
Product
The existing product provides social care practitioners with a supported place to collaboratively make decisions on how to communicate with the young people they’re working with. The form of the website guides the user through the decision-making factors identified in our research and uses a child-focused visual identity. A digital toolkit provides further support for practitioners in taking a hybrid approach to practice and an area for organisations starts to consider the necessary infrastructure to support hybrid practice.
