Weeknote w/c 6th September 2021

By Rose Anderson 10 September 2021 3 minute read

What we did

  • We caught up with Lambeth Council, who are keen to push the app forward to ensure it is reaching the young people who need it.
  • We’re continuing to input the data from our user testing interviews so far into our analysis framework. We’re also in touch with UK Youth to see if we can arrange a few more interviews.
  • We caught up with Frog Systems about the signposting software. We discussed the functionality and cost for use of the software. We are still in conversations about the software, but currently the signposting is based on organisations, rather than individual services, so would need some development before it is appropriate for our audience.

What we’re thinking about

Our contact at Lambeth Council has put us in touch with some colleagues working on the Digital Hub. We’re looking forward to a conversation with them about their plans for the Digital Hub and the role My Best Life might be able to play. Although the Digital Hub is more focused on housing specifically, the team could still link us to other helpful services.

We’ve been having some really interesting conversations with other organisations about the data side of things, discussing how we can update the data and how we broaden the scope of the app beyond Lambeth. At the moment, quite a lot of conversations are happening, but we have no concrete plans for collaboration yet. We’ll use the next couple of months to look at different models and think about what’s appropriate. A lot of people are working in this area, and we don’t want to duplicate efforts.

Challenges

We are in the process of recruiting a new Project Manager to the team; progress is a little slower than expected. We are excited to welcome a new team member and kickstart the next phase of the project soon.

While young people seem to like the app so far, the barrier at the moment is how we make the app sustainable and make sure the information therein is correct and up-to-date.

We have been in touch with Southwark Council about the digital information hub for youth services that they are hoping to develop. While Southwark has not expressed an interest in reusing the My Best Life site, instead focusing on building their own systems and software, we’re hoping we can still collaborate in some way, ideally by sharing our data and our learning with them to ensure we reduce duplication.

Wins from this week

  • From reviewing our interview notes, it seems that young people really like the app so far!

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