Building a new system for Scotland's Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline
How we built a new user-friendly and supportive helpline to improve services
Scotland’s Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline (SDAFMH) supports anyone with experience of domestic abuse or forced marriage, as well as their family members, friends, colleagues and professionals who support them. They answer hundreds of calls every day, and the expert service they provide can be lifesaving.
SDAFMH knew that they were missing out on vital opportunities to support their most at risk and vulnerable callers. With 1 in 5 women and girls affected by gender-based or sexual violence, improving their service was mission critical.
Our goal was to update the helpline system to make this more user friendly and supportive for callers. First, we undertook user research to identify opportunities for improvement. Next, we worked together with the SDAFMH team to introduce both technical and strategic changes to their services.
Working together in an agile sprint process, we prototyped and tested small changes to forms, buttons and phone messaging - testing these changes with users at each stage. Due to the complexities of SDAFMH’s work, this approach allowed us to make gradual improvements whilst minimising risk.
The project helped the team realise a ‘five year helpline tech plan in five months’.
And SDAFMH didn't stop there - so neither did we!
After measuring the impact of the helpline project and finding additional funding, SDAFMH came back to us to develop a texting service for the helpline, to include channels for SMS and WhatsApp and all handled within the Twilio system we built for them.
We completed this in a sprint, then worked through a backlog of tasks to improve the performance and security of the system overall, including automated responses, chat history, preventing call tracing and creating an emergency shutdown option.
