Discovery about the tools used to support I Care…Ambassadors for Skills for Care
We were asked by Skills for Care to lead a discovery project about the suite of tools used to support the I Care…Ambassadors initiative.
I Care…Ambassadors is one of the ways Skills for Care is supporting the recruitment and retention of people working in social care. Ambassadors are care workers and managers who have been selected to share their experiences by mentoring staff, giving presentations, and visiting schools, colleges and job centres.
Our work focussed on the digital tools used to support the initiative, which included a website, a bank of resources for ambassadors to use, a register of ambassadors and available services, an evaluation tool, and an e-learning platform.
We consulted employers, service coordinators, and ambassadors through a series of one-to-one interviews, surveys, and field visits. Our research enabled us to understand and break down the whole service from different users’ perspectives in a series of service journey maps.
We provided detailed findings including an analysis of stakeholder perspective, and a review of the technology options available to Skills for Care. And our recommendations were supported by a series of low fidelity clickable prototypes we designed and tested with actual users, demonstrating how a future service might address some of the issues raised during our work.
Our recommendations provided clear ways for Skills for Care to enable individuals to be more effective in their roles, better communicate and sell the initiative, increase uptake and ongoing participation, improve the online user experience, and convey the passion felt by participants towards working in social care.
