Self-serve information and support for refugees
British Red Cross, UKThe services at the Red Cross support refugees to travel to the UK, access the essential facilities at arrival and support to settle and integrate in their new homes. This support is very individualised and on a person-by-person basis, to ensure the correct information is given and been received properly. However, with raising numbers of refugees in the UK, the service staff is under enormous time pressure. This leads to long waiting lists and prioritisation on where to provide support.
Providing personalised support - using modern tools to self-serve.
I run a scoping phase with the key services that are involved in providing support after a person or family arrives to the UK. We created an end-to-end current “as-is” journey to identify gaps of support for certain user groups. I helped the department to identify a roadmap of work packages. One of the places to start was to develop a self-serve support offer for people that are confident to help themselves. This will free up time for staff members to focus on those service users that are in need for in-person support most.
Process
Review existing user research and reports about needs of refugees after arriving in the UK
Research conversations across service teams
Map service offer and policy changes against user needs. Identify gaps between user needs and service offer along the journey
Prioritisation session with small groups to prioritise the areas of the biggest gaps for the project.
Cross-organisational ideation sessions with service managers and front line workers to generate opportunity areas on how the British Red Cross can address the gaps
Developing of overall opportunity areas for the service in how to create a seamless support and information experience for the various needs people have after the arrival in the UK
Generate user stories to illustrate the Minimum Viable Service for different user groups and service staff
Develop a future end-to-end service map
Collect best practice examples and write project briefs
Presentation of service vision for self-serve to service managers
Design strategy
Capability building
1:1 conversations with the in-house service improvement team to understand the needs for service design and user research skills
Analysis of priority skills needed for the team
Co-create a format with the team on how to learn the service design skills
Fortnightly service design sessions around specific topics, including theoretical background, examples, practical application on current projects
1:1 mentoring on a fortnightly basis to develop individual goals and reflect on activities and progress
Dedicated support on projects to help with design strategy and approach
Support and skills sharing during project work, e.g. how to do user research, how to consider user needs on projects
Survey and analysis of team progress and iteration of the capability building approach
"A lot of thoughts from across the service went into this in such a short time. It is inspiring to see how self-serve can be done in practice, we need to move with the time and extend the channels which we offer support through."Service manager