Tech to Connect case studies

London-based, with reach across the country

CareToConnect is a new app designed to help people who feel isolated in their role caring for someone. At the touch of a button, people can connect with a confident, experienced volunteer or Marie Curie expert to access informal support. The app, which uses the same simple technology and design of social apps, will be available to anyone in England caring for someone who is terminally ill, so long as they have access to a smart phone or mobile device. Unlike other support solutions, it will enable people to connect from where they are, and to create their own meaningful one-to-one connections based on their personal preferences and needs.

Our intended beneficiaries are people in a caring role for someone living with any terminal illness or frailty. This includes people who are currently looking after or looking out for someone; they don’t need to be family or next of kin, but normally are. Annually, over 2.1 million adults become carers. This can be a challenging role, both physically and mentally.

CareToConnect embraced a human-centred design approach, building on existing extensive knowledge and experience of providing care, information and support for people affected by a terminal illness. We then consulted our ‘Marie Curie Voices’ group of former carers, who acted as a critical friend in the initial proof of concept testing. This group has significant experience in providing care for partners, parents and other family members, and was able to reflect on their own experiences to inform their feedback on the app. Eight ‘voices’ were recruited to a steering group for the app and each took part in in-depth telephone interviews at the outset of the project.

We recognised the need to reach people unfamiliar with Marie Curie and with a wider range of experience of palliative care. To avoid unconscious bias and to test the product with a real-world sample, we worked with a boutique market research agency, skilled in testing and developing products and services around cancer, end of life and health more broadly. A series of focus groups (Manchester) and video interviews (England-wide) took place to present the concept and get feedback on the prototype, which informed our subsequent development.

CareToConnect aims to increase awareness of the societal challenge posed by isolation of people looking after a loved one. By gaining greater insight into their emotional and practical needs, we can better cater and advocate for them. Through a PR campaign, the team will highlight the demands of caring from the angle of social isolation, helping people better understand the impact of caring, while promoting the app. As part of wider work, Marie Curie is seeking to change the UK’s perspective on dying and death, one of society’s greatest taboos. A recently launched national campaign, Talk About, is encouraging people to have conversations about death and dying because we know that talking about it can improve the experience, and challenge the isolation that comes with it. By tying the CareToConnect product into this, we are focusing on an anticipatory approach, helping people access the tools they need early on. Furthermore, the app can be used across England (and the UK), building on our nationwide infrastructure and influence in local palliative care services, which will provide the foundation for scaling up. The plan is for it to then be absorbed into Marie Curie’s wider, national Information and Support Service.

Case Study: CareToConnect

Manchester-based, with reach across the country

Our project is designed to reduce social isolation by encouraging and creating opportunities for face-to-face interaction. It encourages cafes and other public venues to designate a ‘Chatter & Natter’ table, which is where customers can sit if they are happy to talk to other customers.

Technology is the most vital component of this solution as it is the first point of call for beneficiaries; it is where they can discover and learn about the scheme, search for their nearest Chatter & Natter table, and contact us. People can access the scheme’s website in many languages, making it accessible for various groups – from migrants to international students and others. The website is also where venues join the scheme.

Our intended beneficiaries are the general public aged 18 or over with no upper age limit. They are of any gender and of any race, religion, profession, background or circumstance. They may have additional needs, be retired, widowed, in ill health, high earners, low earners – the scheme is aimed at all adult demographics of the population. We aim to be an inclusive project and therefore it is essential that we involve beneficiaries in our design, development and day-to-day operations. Questions are regularly asked via social media, polls, newsletters as well as through direct engagement with beneficiaries.

The scheme started in April 2017 and has grown organically using social media. The funds received through the Tech to Connect Challenge have helped us to respond efficiently to customer and beneficiary demand; we have been able to really push our social media, to refresh and revamp our website with co-production from beneficiaries and to scale up the project throughout England and to roll out the initiative
in new cafes.

Through our website, we are expanding the scheme globally, and we now have Chatter & Natter tables in Canada, America, Gibraltar, Australia and Poland. We are also hoping to be able to implement our ambassador scheme. These people will support and showcase our work in their communities as we believe they are the key to ensuring we know what local communities want and need to make the Chatter & Natter tables work.

Case Study: Chatty Cafe

Lancashire, with reach across the country

A digital platform to enable connection with a safe, trained LGBT+ adult mentor for support, including options for face-to-face local support for young lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or questioning people who are socially isolated.

We are hoping to reach young LGBT+ people in the North West of England to offer them the support they need. We have designed this support to be easy to access, confidential, run by people who understand as they are LGBT+ people, and will help LGBT+ young people feel more connected. They will be able to share their worries, and a trained adult mentor can listen and answer questions through the app/website.

They will also be able to access support guides and films through the app/website, including therapeutic and coaching tools to help them take control of their life and make positive decisions.

The pilot phase has demonstrated that this can be a free at source service for young people, which it will need to be to ensure access. This is because often those who need it most might be from strict traditional families and will therefore not have access to their own funds, and/or will have these funds scrutinised by parents. Therefore, they could not risk being ‘found out’ by parents by paying fees.

Based on our work with Manchester and Salford CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services), it is clear that there is a disproportionate number of LGBT+ young people accessing their services, and often by the time they reach them they are at a crisis level. Through feedback from the pilot phase conducted during the Tech To Connect Challenge, we decided to have clusters of mentors in an ‘online support centre’/‘phone bank’ style set-up, who are volunteers and do shifts supervised by a paid manager. We will also partner with sister organisations such as Kooth and Childline to ensure that resources can be pooled here possible, to ensure cost effectiveness.

Once the app is ready it will be implemented in the North West first of all and, if successful, the mentoring training will then be rolled out through each of the hubs. The app will then be extended through a national marketing campaign so that all regions are contributing adult mentors to the scheme, which will provide national coverage for LGBT+ support. We will also explore licencing the technology behind the app to other charities who have isolated beneficiaries, so that they can benefit from the technology too – this might include mental health charities and disability charities.

Case Study: CONNECT

Suffolk

A digital platform designed for libraries that will reduce social isolation and improve wellbeing. It will do this by identifying individual and collective needs for emotional and practical support, transforming the relationship between demand for and supply of services in communities. Our service harnesses technology to deliver a tangible, real-world intervention that draws from a huge pool of readily available activities, events and experiences. Technology acts as the facilitator of change, referring users to interventions proven to address the root causes of social isolation and loneliness.

Initially, the main group of intended beneficiaries are those at risk of experiencing loneliness or isolation in Suffolk. Happy Place is an intervention that could address both challenges by connecting people to activities, events and experiences in their local area. It could also give the user the opportunity to connect to individuals and/or groups of people in similar circumstances, or perhaps with shared interests by making personalised suggestions. Research commissioned by Suffolk Libraries has studied the link between attending activities and improvements in wellbeing.

We started doing user research and testing in December 2019 and embraced a human-centered design approach to tailoring our solution to our beneficiaries. After a period of user research, we were able to identify four demographic groups that would benefit from our project and different types of interventions. It is clear that the library service hosting brings the additional benefit of being able to incorporate recommendations of wider content such as books, information resources, film and music – all available for free. Some feedback also outlined the need to have activities outside of the library. As a result, new partnerships were created with the Suffolk County Council and Suffolk Mind and Wellbeing Suffolk, to be able to explore opportunities to also showcase activities, events and experiences outside of a library setting.

We will be spending the next few months creating a minimum viable product (MVP). This will require further development time and mapping of the library and wider community offer when it comes to events and activities. The next development phase will see the creation of the diagnostic tool based on the manual process used during testing. The MVP will incorporate functionality driven by user feedback and a prototype of the diagnostic tool. It will be freely available to library users at a test site. We are really looking forward to using the agile approach as it makes developing the MVP financially viable.

Case Study: Happy Place

Greater London, with reach across the country

Mirthy is using technology to transform the UK’s 35,000 retirement developments and care homes into activity hubs for older adults, using existing spare resources such as communal lounges, to efficiently and effectively tackle social isolation. Our aim is to transform underutilised spaces into ‘community hubs’ for activities like talks, where older adults can make new social connections and strengthen existing ones. Our online platform allows retirement developments to book speakers, typically older adults themselves, to provide talks in their communal spaces, whilst encouraging residents and members of the local community to attend and mix for social interaction.

Mirthy’s intended beneficiaries are older adults aged 65+, who number approximately 12.2 million across the UK,* split between those that live in retirement developments and care homes, and those that are in the community in their own homes. With recent internet use for 65-74 year-olds up from 52 per cent in 2011 to 83 per cent in 2019 (ONS), there appears increased demand for connectivity and connection in older populations. We will initially work with retirement homes to offer them an online platform through which they can easily organise and book older adult speakers to deliver interesting talks on a variety of subjects for their residents and older adults in the local community.

*As per ONS mid-year 2018 data.

In January 2020 we signed a contract with McCarthy & Stone, who are the UK’s leading private retirement housing provider for a paid pilot. During the Tech To Connect Challenge, we iterated quickly and cheaply using the lean startup methodology to test various operating approaches to find a model that is viable,
scalable, sustainable and meets the needs of users and beneficiaries, delivering a greater impact in comparison to alternative models.

In light of the current lockdown among our target audiences due to Covid-19, Mirthy is launching online Mirthy Talks, which are delivered by our network of speakers using webinar technology to reach millions of older adults who may be socially isolated in their own homes. We also plan to continue our expansion plans to onboard more retirement living groups as well as work with McCarthy & Stone to roll out the platform to more of their homes, targeting 100 of their developments. We’re also looking to scale across community clubs region by region and nationally where a national overarching body is present. Finally, we’ll be exploring other activity types that could use a similar platform and model e.g. Arts & Craft and fitness classes to engage beneficiaries with other interest types.

Case Study: Mirthy

Bristol, with reach across the country

Music Memory Box contributes to the reduction of social isolation by enabling quality connections between people living with dementia and those around them. Co-designed with people living with dementia, it’s a physical and digital tool that improves wellbeing and social connection for those living with dementia and their loved ones. It uses multi-sensory visual, physical and audio triggers unique to the individual to reminisce about people, places and things that matter.

The intended beneficiaries for Music Memory Box include individuals living with dementia, their families, carers, and professional care providers. 850,000 people are currently living with dementia in the UK. Our product supports people right from diagnosis who are still living independently, to the 1/3 of people resident in care homes needing more support. In particular, we want groups that are overlooked currently in service provision to be at the heart of how Music Memory Box develops. During our pilot we worked with care homes in Bristol and the carer group Bristol Black Carers, who found Music Memory Box improved communication, reduced confusion and supported new positive experiences for people living with dementia and their community. We want to expand on this relationship and emphasise the customisation of Music Memory Box for marginalised groups through organisations like Opening Doors (LGBT+ friendly memory cafe) and DACE (The Dementia Alliance for Culture and Ethnicity).

Over the last six months, we have been working with a local manufacturing partner to develop our prototype into a market-ready product. We’ve expanded on our successful Kickstarter campaign to focus our marketing strategy on families and individual carers. We have also built relationships with CQC Outstanding Rated care homes, who are already using some aspects of reminisce or music therapy in their care provision. With the affect of music for people living with dementia becoming more well known, we’ve concentrated on an accessible tool that supports wellbeing, social connection and technology, rather than introducing more screenbased interaction.

Much of our time as a Tech To Connect Challenge finalist has been spent testing various models of scaling across the UK. We are now looking to invest in marketing to individual independent customers, as well as scaling through national partnerships with charities such as Alive and retailers like Live Better With. The dementia ‘market’ is relatively new, so by working alongside charities such as Studio Meineck, we can directly engage this group of independent users.

The potential of impact from scaling is huge, with the right marketing approach and an evidence base of the positive, transformative effect the box can have. Studio Meineck has already sold pre-orders of the Music Memory Box through a kickstarter in the Netherlands, USA and Germany, which indicates future beneficiaries in different countries after scaling has taken place in the UK. As quality care for someone with a dementia is a global issue, the team has created an easily customisable tool that works across different cultures and backgrounds.

Case Study: Music Memory Box

Manchester

PlaceCal is a community toolkit that brings resident groups together to create a shared social calendar, and was developed out of a research project into social isolation and loneliness experienced by older residents in Manchester.

Our core beneficiaries are people at risk of social isolation, especially older people in low social capital neighbourhoods. It is used by various support networks to reach our beneficiaries: family, GPs, neighbourhood teams, city councils and public health teams. Though everyone in a neighbourhood can use PlaceCal and derive benefit from it, beneficiaries are not just people using our service directly; everyone living in a neighbourhood can benefit from neighbourhood agencies and councils being better connected, as it would allow their community workers more time to focus on building social connections
within the community.

PlaceCal emerged directly out of Manchester Age Friendly Neighbourhoods (MAFN), an engaged research project exploring wider determinants of health across five neighbourhoods in Manchester. We conducted mixed-method research with a wide range of beneficiaries in the Hulme & Moss Side neighbourhood.

We interviewed 30 community groups in the area on a range of event-related topics and discovered that almost no one felt they were promoting effectively. None of the groups interviewed even knew how to publish event information on their own website, if they even had one. We found that existing websites were far too complicated and people found them hard to use. We worked with Manchester Age Friendly Neighbourhoods to develop an attractive, high contrast colour scheme, set the font size much larger than average, and removed as much visual clutter from the screen as possible. We have developed a plan to reach out to small community groups nationwide, recognising that these are at the heart of their communities.

We plan to work with our current pilot organisations (One Manchester, BAVS, Marvellous Mossley, Christchurch, and NEPHRA) to identify scale-up opportunities in their local areas. We will then use this information to further hone our marketing strategy and identify the most likely clients for regional rollout. We will continue to try to grow our reach by working with key anchor organisations in as many areas as possible and achieve saturation by using these groups to scale up.

After completing this work, we will be able to conduct a targeted marketing campaign to contact relevant potential users across the UK. Once we have conducted one regional rollout and the associated co-production and evaluation, we will be in a much stronger position to provide rollouts to other regional areas. Our ambition is to become leaders in advocating for bottom-up solutions that tackle social deprivation and isolation, and demonstrate the future of how software can strengthen communities rather than widening the digital divide.

Case Study: PlaceCal

Hampshire

An app that uses immersive technology (360 video, augmented and virtual reality) to help people who live with anxiety view places and activities in advance of attending. The aim is to reduce their feelings of anxiety and increase their confidence in attending, which in turn reduces their potential social isolation.

Our primary audience is autistic people for whom raised anxiety levels are the norm and are accompanied by sensory difficulties that compound the anxiety. We have also broadened this to include people who suffer from severe and chronic anxiety, often brought on by trauma or early life experiences and people who suffer episodes of anxiety or who have a tendency to procrastinate and hence avoid places and activities that will improve their social outcomes.

Initially PALS teamed up with JP Morgan and Autism Hampshire to run a ‘Code 4 Good’ hackathon for 15 young autistic people. Their challenge was to create a design for our website and to consider lived experience in the design and operations. The project has developed a long way through the course of the Tech to Connect challenge, understanding that anxietybased isolation is a much wider phenomenon than the autistic community originally envisaged as the primary target group.

Rather than use a traditional development team, PALS contracted Future Coders CIC to develop the web app that would provide access to the immersive material for users and for admin functions. For this, they recruited five young people who live with anxiety (including three on the autism spectrum) to carry out the coding and to incorporate their lived experience into the design. Two autistic film specialists were contracted to produce all the immersive materials based on users’ needs and their lived-in knowledge. In addition, an independent impact review was commissioned to assess the impact of social inclusion for the development team.

One thing we learned is the need to tailor experiences both to meet the needs of venues and also for the beneficiaries who will use the service. Based on the support received through the Tech to Connect Challenge, we have worked with Portsmouth Football Club and Enable Ability (a charity that offers work experience for disabled people), and we have also partnered with Autism Hampshire to set up a clinical advisory team to oversee the support function
for beneficiaries using the service.

We plan to scale and deliver this service across England as well as across our group of beneficiaries, which means designing different approaches depending on the degree of support that each person needs. Our aim is for the service to become mainstream in a whole range of public service organisations: education, the justice system, health and social care, transport, rural affairs, and Job Centres. One of our key ambitions is that each of these organisations’ websites includes a link to our What’s It Like? webpage and we will begin to deliver for community-based organisations outside the public sector, including sports and leisure groups.

Case Study: What’s It Like?