After months of hard work from across the council, our Staffordshire Connects site has had a massive makeover!

This project follows on from the work undertaken by the Digital Team and Adult Social Care team to redevelop and restructure the online offer for adults to improve the customer journey. The second part of the project has brought a Families and Children’s Directory, our SEND Local Offer and our Care Market Development Team onto the pages, merging four separate websites into one directory site.

Linking in with the Place Based Approach Work and various departments within SCC, as well as partner organisations such as the Districts, Boroughs, SCYVS and Support Staffordshire, the site boasts and impressive directory of community and voluntary organisations, clubs and groups. With easy to apply filters citizens will be able to find local services that meet their needs quickly easily. However, there is always room for more and the relevance and accuracy of the pages is a shared responsibility of the organisation, and so local organisations can register on the pages themselves, which is quick and easy to do.

The site has been developed in partnership with Open Objects who already provide similar sites for a number of local authorities.

The new look Staffordshire Connects will provide …

• A fully consolidated central hub that offers children, families and adults access to hundreds of different care and support services, organisations, local activities, events, clubs and community groups taking place across the county.
• A central platform for which practitioners can signpost children and families and adults to support them self-serve / take personal responsibility.
• A joined up and shared digital offer across children, families, early years, SEND and adults which reduces duplication and improves the customer journey.
• A central platform for which providers can upload information about what support they can offer to communities

This will ensure …

• A reduced families / children reliance on practitioners such as health visitors and schools nurses to provide community signposting information
• An improved customer journey for all families, children and adults across the SCC digital channels and the ability to be able to access information all in one place
• An increase in families, children and adults accessing support available in the community.
• Maximising efficiencies and reducing duplication within existing contracts held by adult health and care, SEND, early years and children and families.
• Improved relationships with providers offering them the ability to share, and market their offer to the communities that they serve.

More information on the site can be found under ‘Digital Health‘.