Aberdeenshire Children’s Services has recently been commended by the Care Inspectorate in Scotland for its ‘My Voice’ engagement with children and young people.

Why did the involvement of young people in the design and development of the method of engagement make such a difference? Read On.

In 2015 following an Inspection by the Care Inspectorate, Aberdeenshire Children’s Services received particularly praise for way it involved young people in the design and implementation of an engagement system, and the way the solution now allows the young person to personalise and individualise their own space for engaging with their particular social worker.

As noted in the Inspectorate’s report on Children’s Services in Aberdeenshire:

"...... young people have been actively involved in the procurement and design processes. In addition to this, one of the project team employed full-time in the ICT Team at Aberdeenshire Council to work on getting the right system in place is a young person who was previously looked after."

"Young people were invited to participate in a scoping exercise of the available systems on the market and to explore the technology available to enhance the quality of partners’ engagement with them. They were supported to do this by social workers, residential staff, the Children’s Rights Service, members of the council’s ICT team and the business systems officer for Children’s Services."

"As a result of the feedback provided by the children and young people involved, it was concluded that a new system would be commissioned, involving young people in its selection and design."

"Young people had a pivotal role in selecting the business that has been developing the Together Aberdeenshire platform, of which My Voice is an important component. They contributed to the design of My Voice as a tool that can be used offline on dedicated tablets available in each office, or used online by young people wishing to use it more independently."

"Young people designed the product to have customisable profile pages, animation and age-appropriate graphics such as the use of emoticons, and two sets of core questions. These question sets were streamlined to cut out some of the repetition that children and young people had said they found tiresome in previous systems."

"The resulting product is considered by users to be enticing, flexible and adaptable for future continuous improvement initiatives."

"In addition to the feedback they have received about the system, the young people involved in the development of My Voice were able to benefit from being very positively involved in a range of business processes. They were able to experience shared responsibility for a continuum of service development within which their own contributions were highly valued and integrated. They could see their ideas being translated into the reality of a business product. They gained confidence and self-esteem through being partners in the design team and seeing the success of the choices and design changes made directly by them."

"The roll-out of My Voice is ongoing across Aberdeenshire"

Sam McNeil, who led the project for My Voice at Aberdeenshire Council, says of the platform.

"The project has been a positive experience and very much a collective effort. With the support of developers at Your Place Your Space we have been able to integrate the ideas and designs from service users and practitioners to ensure we have a system that is both flexible and adaptable to meet the evolving requirements of Children’s Services in Aberdeenshire. This has resulted in a positive user experience for gathering the views of children and young people receiving a service"

And here is a view typically held by social workers who now regularly use the platform to engage with young people.

"In my view, the system is really easy to use and allows the child involved independence, and ‘a voice’ to express their views. I look forward to using My Voice on the tablet in future – less bulk for me also!"
- Jenni Fotheringham, Local Area Coordinator

For further information on the Together engagement platform and the ‘My Voice’ engagements with young people, contact Jonathan at Your Place Your Space.

Jonathan.bostock@peoplemattersnetwork,com

Tel: 0121 4105520

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Together solutions from Your Place Your Space

The ‘together’ suite of engagement tools with its integrated digital space and social media channel will deliver the ideal solution to meet your requirements, whether it’s as a partnership with other organisations or on your own.

Gather greater insight

Collect evidence, run surveys, manage a discussion or host a focus group. Support your decisions with fresh insight.

Costs from £200

Consult

Use a Together consultation portal and consult your customers, service users or communities over issues that really matter.

Costs from £2,500 per annum

Engage

Use a Together engagement platform and engage your customers, service users or communities in decisions that really matter.

Costs from £5,000 per annum

Build passion with your community

Take your customers, service users and communities on the journey with you and involve them, inspire them and build passion.

Let’s discuss all the options

Jonathan.bostock@peoplemattersnetwork,com

Tel: 0121 4105520

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YourPlaceYourSpace – the digital space devoted to creating positive social impact

YourPlaceYourSpace is here for people who really want to become involved in their community or with their particular passion and for those people who are really serious about making a difference.

It’s our job at Your Place Your Space to provide the tools and functionality that helps bring together those who created ideas with those who have the potential to turn an idea into something that really does make a difference. That’s why we’ve created YourPlaceYourSpace!

There are three components to YourPlaceYourSpace. There’s Community Passport, Community Workspace and Community Matchmaker

Community Passport

Passport is a personal space which registered members can make their own. With a passport, members can choose to get involved with their passion and participate in many different ways.

They can view regular content and posts; sort and save this content by type or by passion; they can share their views through polls and surveys, attend events or even join a discussion.

With a YourPlaceYourSpace Community Passport, members can follow inspiring people and they can learn more about their community and their passion by following regular ‘Did you Know’ features.

Community Workspace

With their unique Community Workspace, YourPlaceYourSpace is able to help those who are inspired and serious about taking things to the next level. YourPlaceYourSpace will give these people their own access rights environment where they can work on their idea or project.

In this digital space they can work alone, or bring in others to share in building evidence, acquiring knowledge and developing plans. This is the ideal space for working on the business; working on the idea; working on the initiative.

A range of facilities and tools can be found in workspace and users can effectively utilise this space for collating documents, photos, videos and web links, for opening up discussion and chat with others, or for running surveys and analysing results.

Community Matchmaker

The whole focus and rationale for YourPlaceYourSpace is MAKING A DIFFERENCE. It’s our job at Your Place Your Space to provide the tools and functionality that helps bring together those who create the GREAT IDEAS with those who have the potential to turn an IDEA into something that really does MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Matchmaker is where the dreamers can join with the dream makers – with those who are more than happy to put their support, their resources, their connections, and their wealth of experience behind the idea and behind the passionate people responsible for coming up with the idea.

These are the community drivers, the investors, the philanthropists, the funders of great initiatives, the Lottery, and those from local government and the public sector who are responsible for the provision of public services.

These are the people and the organisations who are in positions of making things happen for those who are passionate and inspired to want to make a difference.

Jonathan.bostock@peoplemattersnetwork,com

Tel: 0121 4105520

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Severe winter forecast – no problem!

Book one of our tailored ‘Show & Tell’ on-line tours at a time suitable for you at any time during February.

Whatever your interest, community engagement, consultation, greater customer insight or a combination of all three, just let us know what it is you’d like to take a look at, give us a time when it’s convenient for you and/or colleagues and we’ll do the rest.

Let us show you round some of the sites we’ve created for various clients and explain how they’re planning to take their engagement of their community to a new level in 2020.

Let us show you some of the innovative ways you can build stronger relationships with your community and how together with others you can connect, engage and share passion for the benefit of all.

Let us show you what we mean by Communities of Passion and how this digital form of engagement can be used to inspire people to work together to create positive social impact, deliver greater social capital and a generate a more inclusive and cohesive society.

Of course, if you’d prefer a face to face meet-up, just say when and where.

Jonathan.bostock@peoplemattersnetwork,com

Tel: 0121 4105520

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Never before has the need to mobilise a community who want to play their part been greater. This together with a collaborative approach with partners can make all the difference. This is where Community Workspace comes in. The attached shows you the role of workspace in mobilising your community in the fight against COVID-19. Local government has a crucial role to play in co-ordinating this work with partners and we are here to help.

View full document here.

I am Jonathan Bostock and we are Your Place Your Space.

I can be contacted on 07432 637322 to discuss our platform and workspace with you, your colleagues or any of your partners. Alternatively, contact me by email and we can set up an online presentation at a time to suit you.

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Royal Borough of Greenwich is the latest of the Your Place Your Space clients to use mapping to engage the community over the potential location of electric charge points.

This council is looking to provide more on-street charging points to encourage people to switch from diesel and petrol vehicles to electric ones. This is one of the objectives in their Greener Greenwich Strategy and Air Quality Action Plan which sets out how they plan to reduce emissions and clean up the borough’s air.

Royal Borough of Greenwich Council has identified and mapped potential locations that could be suitable for more charging points, which would form part of the Source London network.

Using a linked survey, the council has invited the community to comment on potential electric charge point locations within a number of wards across The Borough of Greenwich.

The proposal is for 7kw charge points to be installed at a number of locations. They would be for public use and would provide charging times of about 3-4 hours. The bays would be restricted, so that only electric vehicles would be allowed to use them.

To find out how maps can be used to connect and engage with your community, call us on 0121 410 5520.

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With so many people demanding action over climate change, a new digital space is launching this month in Birmingham ahead of a national roll-out.

www.GreenActionWithYou.com is an on-line community where people can follow their passion, share their ideas, connect and collaborate for a better and healthier environment.

The driving force behind the initiative has been the interest shown by people of all ages from across community for a digital space where those who want to get involved can work on their own ideas and connect with others who want to make a difference.

Whether it’s cleaner air, protection for our parks and open spaces, greener transport, less waste or the elimination of one-use plastics, there’s so much we can do, but to do this quickly and effectively we must work together.

Green Action with You is all about engaging community in the environment and providing a digital space for people who want to make a difference.

If you represent a business or public service provider, there are many ways you can engage with people across our growing YourPlaceYourSpace communities. Find out more HERE.

For people and community who are keen to make a difference, we provide a free digital space and tools so they can promote what they do, share their passion for protecting the environment and connect with others to make an even greater social impact.

With Passion Points and with the support of our partners, sponsors and advertisers, we recognise people for the difference and contribution they make.

Become a contributor and share your passion with YourPlaceYourSpace.

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To further support social distancing measures after ‘pinch points’ were identified.

Changes have been implemented to make the environment safer for residents, pedestrians and cyclists to travel and they give more road space to both pedestrians and cyclists. These measures will make it easier for residents to maintain social distancing at busy areas such as entrances to parks, shops and transport hubs.

Low traffic streets and expanded footways

The introduction of low traffic streets by stopping through traffic on some roads, is designed to reduce traffic making it safer for residents to use the road near their homes while maintaining social distancing.

The segregated cycle lanes works to create quieter and safer roads for cyclists by introducing low traffic schemes, closing roads to through traffic.

Creating more temporary footway space at narrow pinch points give pedestrians and cyclists more space to help keep a social distance and there have been pavement expansions giving people more space at busy pinch-points in addition to the low traffic schemes.

On-Line Mapping of Streetspace schemes

Your Place Your Space was asked to provide a user friendly solution that could be implemented quickly so that residents could be consulted on the effectiveness of existing interventions and whether there were further measures that could be taken.

Your Place Your Space implemented their mapping tool and linked it to their survey tool.

A map displaying symbols of existing interventions was linked to a survey so as to collect views on the effectiveness of those schemes.

A further map was included where residents could pinpoint suggestions for new schemes.

To date more than 800 residents have engaged in the consultation on existing and proposed new schemes and is proving to be a great success in involving community during a challenging time for everyone including pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and people taking public transport.

For further details on this form of engagement contact Jonathan Bostock at Your Place Your Space on 07432 637322 or email jonathan.bostock@YourPlaceYourSpace.com

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