We have had a busy few weeks with our parent/carer panels for family hubs, and have had three more face-to-face sessions to gather feedback.

We have tried to organise these meetings within each of our localities, to make the sessions as accessible as possible. The feedback we have gathered so far has identified we also need to organise a digital session and a session outside of standard working hours. These will be planned in as we want to reach as many people as possible, and give everyone the chance to express their views.

The key themes that came through across the three sessions were:

The strongest theme that all sessions identified was the gap in communication and access to information. The main point being that parents and carers struggled to find information on events and groups that are on at the Children’s Centres.

This has led to us thinking about how parents want to access the information.

Social media seems to be the platform that is currently used to advertise the events and sessions, but as this is a feed it seems that the information is quickly lost or hard to find. Others said that they don’t have social media and hear about things through word of mouth.

These ways of communication can still be utilised, but I think it has become apparent that we need a new way of showing what we offer, something that is accessible and easy to navigate. One of our panel members said:

“I want information available at the click of a button.”

We began thinking about our website and other options available. Using our Facebook group, we distributed a poll to ask what method of communication they would prefer and the results are below:

We are going to continue this user research and gain a wider view of opinions, and simultaneously explore our options.

Interestingly, the results show that the majority would like a digital option and we are excited to see what we can do to meet the needs of the people in our borough.

The panels are a really good tool for us, as we hope to do user testing with various options to gain thorough user research and make necessary iterations to any ideas.

The next steps we are taking are:

• Continue with our parent/carer panels, including an evening and digital session
• Research digital options in relation to accessing information
• Hold a stall at the Disability Information Day to gain feedback from SEND parents and carers

If you have any questions, or would like to talk to us about this project, please email us at customerpanel@blackburn.gov.uk or join our Facebook group!