My Time
Project Overview
Local Solutions Charity has an established project called Mytime, amongst its portfolio serving some of the most vulnerable children and adults in the community. The Mytime project has gained a high profile for successfully matching carers with break giving organisations willing to offer free breaks in and around the Liverpool city region. The issue was how to scale the initiative and help it become sustainable without commissioner funding.
What We Did
With a resident Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, we identified an RSA grant that could resource a co-designed and researched digital solution. We won an RSA grant of £10k. We also accessed the Hitch Fund, revenue donated by Hitch Marketing to fund social innovation projects, to make the project possible.
After a brief appearance on BBC North West to celebrate the initiative, we have undertaken the insight phase. This involved a desk study and interviews with stakeholders, including staff, carers, break-givers, social care commissioners and digital tech experts. Through the development phase we created a wireframe for a digital platform to simplify and automate administrative processes to generate additional capacity and tools for MyTime hubs, as they established around the UK. Following the pilot study, the system was then made available for MyTime to use as a core service.
Results
Kimberley Staines – Engagement Manager, RSA “We’re pleased to be supporting MyTime’s work empowering carers to seek breaks from their critical work of caregiving. This is an important initiative addressing working structures and health and well-being and we look forward to the platform’s future development with the help of the RSA Catalyst Award.”
For more information about the Mytime project go to: https://mytime4carers.co.uk/
