There is a growing increase in organisations diversifying their frontline service delivery through digital channels and we know for some there may be a lot to learn and understand. The new Kinship Peer-to-Peer Support Service which received £1mil Government funding (through the Department for Education), the first of its kind, is being developed to provide those carers with emotional support and help them build communities in their local area.
We caught up with Emma Wrafter, their Director of Service Design and Impact to delve into the project in more detail as the project passed the 3-month mark. We cover everything from the start of the project and hiring those all-important roles through to how we can learn from others and the value of peer support from the sector.
Emma joined Kinship in July 2020 to set-up their award winning Covid-19 Kinship Response service. Her role encompasses service design, strategy, digital transformation and impact, volunteering and leading on development into Wales. She also oversees Kinship Compass, which is developing high quality pathways for advice, information and peer support ensuring that services for kinship carers meet their needs. She led on the development and mobilisation of the new £1 million Kinship Peer Support Service which sits in her team and launched in January 2022.
About the project
Right now, there are 200,000 children in the UK being brought up by a kinship carer. Kinship supports kinship carers. And kinship carers are the grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, other family members and friends who step up to raise children when their parents can’t. They’re the hidden army of amazing people who take on caring for children to stop them going into care.
Unfortunately, these carers are often undervalued and don’t receive the support they need. This new peer-to-peer service was a massive undertaking for Kinship, so we caught up with Emma to delve into the project in more detail.
Emma provides valuable insight and advice for any organisation that might be looking to explore digital channels in their service delivery. We cover everything from the start of the project and hiring those all-important roles through to how we can learn from others and the value of peer support from the sector.
To learn more about the Kinship Peer-to-Peer Support Service, you can visit their website here.
Other resources
Here’s Emma’s five top resources to read for charity service design, digital and people:
- Parkinson UK’s – My service transformation journey by Shirley Jones, Associate Director Information and Support
https://parkinsonsukst.medium.com/my-service-transformation-journey-e82e8d089b06
- Catalyst service recipes, real life examples and recipes about creating digital
https://www.thecatalyst.org.uk/support-services/service-recipes
- Creating a culture map to understand organisation’s readiness for change
https://medium.com/the-xplane-collection/culture-map-update-a275dc11a283
- Citizen’s Advice Product Strategy
https://wearecitizensadvice.org.uk/product-strategy-2021-to-2023-273c110054d6
- Datakind UK – using data better
