{"id":291,"date":"2017-02-21T14:34:11","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T14:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetforyou.gov.uk\/digital-first\/?p=291"},"modified":"2017-02-21T14:51:18","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T14:51:18","slug":"my-redesign-experience-with-the-dorset-local-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/2017\/02\/21\/my-redesign-experience-with-the-dorset-local-offer\/","title":{"rendered":"My redesign experience with the Dorset Local Offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my priority areas is the \u201cDorset Local Offer<\/a>\u201d. This term doesn\u2019t mean a lot to most people but, those who know the phrase know it well. Dorset\u2019s Local Offer is what we offer, in Dorset, for the families of children and young people with Special Educational Need and\/or Disabilities (SEND).<\/p>\n

To give you a bit of background information, our old Local Offer content was on a third party system called the Family Information Directory<\/a>. Whilst the system is a fantastic directory, it left us a little underwhelmed when it came to adding the advice and guidance content that you needed to go with each service\u2019s page.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s great if you know you need a \u201cspeech and language therapist\u201d or help with \u201ccontinuing care\u201d but what if you don\u2019t know what service you need, let alone the council jargon used to describe it!<\/p>\n

\"Local<\/a><\/p>\n

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What to do with all that information?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

There was clear room for improvement here as the content wasn\u2019t easy to find and was often written, as many council pages are, in a jargon-filled way, which isn\u2019t customer friendly or accessible<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My biggest challenge with this particular area was sifting through the sheer wealth of information available! There is so much useful stuff but unlike previous projects I\u2019ve been involved in I\u2019m not trying to get people signed up or to buy anything.<\/p>\n

Everything I\u2019ve worked on previously has had measurable goals like \u201cget the user to complete the form\u201d or \u201cget more users signed up to the service\u201d. To have a goal of \u201cleave the user able to decide what they can do to help themselves or what service they need \u201d is much more of a mountain to climb, especially when remembering our adopted mantra of \u201cdo less<\/a>\u201d – we don\u2019t need to reinvent the wheel, but we do need to leave people informed.<\/p>\n

Dorset Parent Carer Council<\/strong><\/h2>\n

To start with, we wanted to speak with the real users – parents of children with SEND. To do this we worked closely with the Dorset Parent Carer Council (DPCC)<\/a> whose members are parents and carers of children and young people with SEND. We got the parents to outline what they wanted to know, how best we could provide this and give examples of Local Offers that they think work well.<\/p>\n

Building the new structure<\/strong><\/h2>\n

From this work and talking with the services, we decided on the following categories:<\/p>\n