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Laying the foundations for better local public services

Societal Early Needs App (SENA)

Contents:

  1. Project outputs
  2. Project timeline

The SENA app uses council data sources with an algorithm to generate a vulnerability risk index that can detect potentially vulnerable citizens.

The project aims to reduce future demand on the public sector by taking proactive steps to manage risk in vulnerable households that have been impacted by COVID-19.

In phase one, the project tested different approaches to engaging with citizens, developed life journey maps, and tested their ‘life event risk scoring’ model.

In phase two, the project co-designed a system approach to pro-actively engaging with citizens to help them handle any issues. The team worked with partners in the community sector (and citizens) to create a service blueprint, service architecture and development backlog, for an app that will provide recommendations to help support citizens and create a seamless process for referring citizens to community organisations.

The project was previously called Vulnerability Risk Index, which was also led by Huntingdonshire District Council.

In its first phase, the project formed a partnership with the SAVVI project, as there was significant overlap between the two projects. They split the allotted £110,000 funding from the C-19 Challenge in August 2020 between them.

A diagram of the SENA basic architecture, which joins the engagement user research into the open platform, connecting together smart input forms, risk index algorithms, case management and intervention services.

Project outputs

The project has built a prototype risk index app, from which case management and referral can take place. This app has been built using research of life-event user journeys and citizen engagement tactics.

This project now plans to rebuild the app on an open shareable platform to provide access to other councils, while ensuring it meets the SAVVI standards of compliance.

SENA phase 2 project outputs include:

Project details

Phase: C-19 Challenge

Funding granted: £140,950

Duration: August 2020 - December 2021

Partners: Huntingdonshire District Council, Bolton Council, and Somerset Councils

Organisations: Huntingdonshire District Council, Bolton Council, Somerset Council

Services: Environmental protection

Project links

Related projects:

Project timeline

August 2020

The Vulnerability Risk Index project receives £55,950 from the Local Digital C-19 Challenge.

February 2021

The project, now named Societal Early Needs App, is awarded £85,000 of follow-on funding to continue their work through the Local Digital Fund.

Building on the knowledge gained during the first phase of the project, the team has three main proposed outputs:

  1. Develop a service blueprint for a risk modelling tool, using the tool previously developed.
  2. Conduct user research for a referral capture tool that will support with signposting those at risk to the most appropriate services.
  3. Provide the Scalable Approach to Vulnerability via Interoperability (SAVVI) project with a worked example of the SAVVI playbook using SENA, and provide support with the iterative improvements of this playbook and the associated standards.

August 2021

The project delivered its end of phase 2 Show and Tell.

September 2021

The project published its outputs:

December 2021

The SAVVI SENA case study is published.