We helped Barnardos enhance mental health and wellbeing services in schools
Barnardos are an incredible charity whose aims are to help and support vulnerable children. Based on charitable expenditure, Barnardos are the largest children's charity in the United Kingdom - The human tech agency was excited to be working with such a heartwarming and giving company.
Challenge
Barnardos key objective was to promote ‘Let's Connect’ which is a collection of their services and interventions that help schools with mental health and wellbeing. They wanted to do this by building a professional platform where they are able to share their knowledge and aspirations to a wide range of schools. The website needed to be educational, supportive and user friendly.
Barnardos currently host workshops in local schools to raise awareness of the different interventions available to children and young people. Face-to-face learning has proven to be really effective, however, they felt they needed to introduce another approach to work alongside it. This is where the idea of the ‘Let’s Connect’ website was born.
The aim of the Let’s Connect website was to use it as a secondary source of information for schools who are looking to tackle everyday issues in young people's lives and how simple interventions can help resolve them. Barnardos currently have a licence to use the WRAP intervention in the UK. This is one of the key interventions they are looking to promote and spread the word about. One of the key website requirements was to provide all users with thorough information on what WRAP is and how it can help young people in different ways.
What we did
We assembled a strong team who put together initial ideas and designs following our kick off meeting/discovery session with the Barnardos team. The purpose of the discovery session was to take a deep dive into the clients needs and requirements for the website. A big challenge was trying to create a design that presented all of the required content (provided by the Barnardos team) without an elevated scroll time.
Whilst constructing the Site Map and User Journey it was important for us to consider that the Barnardos team were looking to develop this platform over time. We had to design and build the website so it was future ready. Working closely with the Marketing Manager and Children's Services Manager at Barnardos, we kicked off the project with a remote discovery session, using Zoom and Miro.
Our main aim was to design a bold and engaging website and user journey for all user types to experience. Both teams agreed that the website must be interactive, easy and simple to use/navigate and most importantly future ready.
During our discovery session with the Barnardos team, the human tech agency were able to understand the clients objectives, values and both short and long term goals. During the discovery session, we discussed the clients KPIs and target audiences to ensure we fully understood what they wish to achieve and most importantly why. By the end of the discovery, human were able to understand the importance of why the Let’s Connect website needed to be brought to life. We knew we needed to be a part of making it special.
It was incredibly important for the Let’s Connect website to stand out from the crowd - It needed to be a memorable experience for users of all ages and backgrounds. We reviewed websites and brands that offered similar services to help determine what works/doesn’t work. Our main goal was to work out how to present a large amount of content without the user dropping off of the page. How could we keep each user engaged?
Following an extremely successful discovery, human were able to create a fully working site map for the client to review. Once this had been signed off by the client we were able to start the exciting part… the design! Our Head of Creative, put together a design that incorporated the Barnardos brand guidelines with a touch of friendliness and fun. The Barnardos Team were pleased with the designs on first review with only a few minor amendments.
Beyond the design of the Let’s Connect website, our professional development team started to build the website into WordPress. The client requested to use WordPress as it is simple to use and again is future ready.
Prior to the Let’s Connect website going live, our team completed a Content Management System training session. Here we were able to go through both the basic and more complex features/functionalities of the website and how they can update all content with ease.
RESULTS
We delivered a professional and user-friendly platform, featuring an intuitive and visually appealing design. It will be easy for users to navigate and access the information they need. Barnardos have seen increased website traffic, longer visit durations, and lower bounce rates, indicating that schools find the content valuable and engaging. They will also be able to measure the impact of their online efforts by tracking the number of schools that engage with the website, the adoption of interventions like WRAP, and the resulting improvements in the mental health and wellbeing of young people. As awareness and trust in Barnardos' services grow through the website, we expect further growth in the number of schools and institutions seeking their support and guidance.
Rachel Coan
Marketing manager
"Thank you for the pain-free journey! Very impressed with the attention to detail and the ability especially at the discovery stage to understand our needs and the big picture to ensure that we captured the essence of what was needed and develop a brilliant solution at pace. We all love the look and feel of the website – big images look great, and the strong design works so well. Contact form is perfect. Looking forward to working with the team on our future developments. "