Progress Tracker
Last month we launched a text notification service for parents to follow the progress of their request for a needs assessment for an education, health and care (EHC) plan. Parents can track the progress of their request just by using their mobile phone.
In response to feedback, our aim was to make the process of tracking easy and transparent. We’ve developed this progress tracker through testing with:
- parents
- carers
- young people
- school settings
- partners involved in the EHC plan process
Keeping parents up to date
Instead of parents having to call us to find out how their request is progressing, our progress tracker provides:
- a real-time update of the assessment request progress
- reassurance for the family about what’s happening at this stage and what’s next
- a reduction in the number of calls to the SEN Team which will lead to time and efficiency benefits; 23% received so far
- more time for the EHC plan progression
- increased confidence and trust in the service
What parents in Dorset have said
Parents have said:
“Being a parent of a child who has been through this process already, the tracker is a definite improvement on experience as a parent.”
“The reassurance from the tracker is HUGE”
“Less stressful, check it whenever you need to, whenever you are having a wobble.”
“Saves you having to phone the council. It’s easy to forget things and with this it’s always on your phone and you can check back.”
“Clear. Not too formal. Simple enough, but also formal enough. Right terminology but also clear. Got the balance right.”
Design sprints
Discovery is the first step of the design process. This is where we work together to develop an understanding of the problem we’re trying to solve: keeping parents informed about their request for a needs assessment for an EHC plan.
For this design sprint we got a group of people together and started to build our first prototype. This group included:
- FutureGov designers
- members of the special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) team
- a business analyst
- a communication officer
- a web content designer
- an IT project manager
Having the relevant people in the team who could make decisions on behalf of their areas of expertise was essential.
We looked at how people request an assessment for an EHC plan and how we update them on our progress.
Together we focused on these stages:
- Defining the challenge.
- Sketching ideas that might help us solve the challenge.
- Choosing an idea to take forward, then storyboarding it.
- Designing a prototype of the chosen idea.
- Putting the prototype in front of users and listening to feedback.
Defining the challenge
Our goal was to build a simple system for our families to keep them informed. We used ‘how might we’ questions, and turned problems into opportunities by asking questions such as:
- how might we help families get the information they need, more quickly, so they can feel informed?
- how might we be open and transparent about the process?
- how might we update people about their assessment?
Working in this way allowed everyone to see the bigger picture. It helped us think about our outcomes and why we want to achieve them. We were able to keep on track for the sprints and focus on the challenge.
Sketching ideas
Through a series of observations and drop–in sessions we were able to sketch out ideas for possible solutions to the ‘how might we’ questions.
This was very helpful for those who are not always confident in participation.
Prototyping
We created prototypes (or mock-ups) of what our tracker and web pages would look like so that we could ask parents for feedback and improve it.
We made prototypes for:
- the progress tracker
- the content about the EHC plan process on Dorset Council website
- how we put the EHC plan process into context with other ways of finding help on the Local Offer
- a more efficient way to contact your school or early years SENCO
Getting feedback from our service users
Continuing with a user-centered approach we showed our chosen prototypes to our service users. We met or spoke with parents and carers at home, in coffee shops, wherever they felt comfortable. We’re lucky to work closely with the Dorset Parent Carer Council and were invited to take part in the parent, carers and young people event; a perfect opportunity to chat to them and show them what we were doing.
This also helped us grasp what it’s like for parents to apply for a needs assessment for an EHC plan, and how they work with schools and health professionals to develop them.
We adapted our prototypes with the feedback from parents, young people and professionals.
Showing our ideas
Throughout the project we used ‘show and tell’ sessions to present our designs and our prototypes to those involved with the process. We provided the user journey and gathered feedback to inform our next steps.
Parents and carers helped us adapt our user journey:
We engaged with users to create our prototype:
We held regular show and tell sessions to keep everyone up to date with our progress:
Some of the things we learnt from our user research:
- people are managing many things within their families; the EHC plan process is just one of them
- a big pain point in the process is not knowing what’s happening, especially waiting for phone calls
- families were very positive about progress updates; they help them to feel in control
- our service needs to be reliable. If our families aren’t happy with our service, it leads to confusion, upset, complaints and a loss of faith in our service
What’s next
Our work doesn’t end there. We’ll continue to build on the work we’ve done so far to improve the EHC plan process, including:
- redesigning the remaining EHC plan process webpage content on our Local Offer, including the review of an EHC plan
- sending out our redesigned letters from June 2019
- going live with the revised information gathering eform in September 2019
- a review of our EHC plan; how we can improve the design and layout to make it more user friendly and accessible
- making continuous improvements to all aspects of the EHC plan process
Alex May – ICT Business Analyst, Kim Saint – Business Support Manager
https://blog.wearefuturegov.com/positive-change-can-happen-simply-and-quickly-b85270b98b6d
Yes we have a way to go but this is an amazing example of how things have moved forward, brilliant progress well done, if this isn’t collaborative working I don’t know what is ?
I only know of one mum who had this, why aren’t we all offered it? Saves the zillion phone calls and worrying etc, we can just check via an app.. But as usual we have no idea it even exists 🙁
It is our policy to offer all parents access to the tracker to support the EHPC process. In investigating your feedback we have identified there have been occasions when this hasn’t happened due to a small number of staff who had problems using the tracker for a short period of time. It is an essential part of the toolkit and should be offered to all parents and a reminder is being issued.