Myplace Weeknotes: Week 12
Furthermore and the Myplace team at the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, embarked on a project with support from Catalyst and National Lottery funding.
Myplace is a green prescribing initiative run by the Lancashire Wildlife Trust which aims to increase mental wellbeing through connecting clients to the natural environment in a group setting. It is predicted that due to COVID-19, almost 20% of the population will need either new or additional mental health support making initiatives like Myplace essential in supporting community mental health provision.
The aim of the project is to increase the number of people who move from initial enquiry or referral to actually joining Myplace and experiencing the benefits of connecting with nature via ecotherapy.
To share our journey with others we drafted weeknotes describing and reflecting on our work over the past week. This is the last edition of our weeknotes as the project has now come to an end but you can read more about our work on the project via the links below:
As our final weeknote, we wanted to share Furthermore and the Myplace team at the Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s top learnings during the project.
Learnings
Chatting to your service users is always worth the effort (but we knew this anyway)
- The key user group the Myplace team wanted to target with this initiative were those that had ‘dropped off’ along the pipeline from referral to registering and attending an ecotherapy session
- However the Myplace team hadn’t been able to speak to these respondents during a prior discovery phase
- We were determined to give it a go on behalf of the team and by creating and implementing a recruitment strategy we were able to interview four prospects who hadn’t made it through the pipeline
- We uncovered some fantastic insights which allowed us to form a holistic picture of non-onboarded users and inform our prototype
The digital divide is alive and well
- Originally the brief for the project had been content focused with particular interest in developing 360 degree video content to increase engagement with the trust prior to attending an ecotherapy session
- We soon discovered however that this wouldn’t work for all users as a significant minority were unable to regularly access the internet
- Given this, we devised a non digital pathway in our prototype- an SMS service which meant that we were able to continue a dialogue with digitally excluded prospects
- Our non-digital pathway design hypothesis was supported during our prototype testing phase as some of our users didn’t leave their email address when completing the initial referral form
- Whilst this may be due to communication preferences, it demonstrates the user need for the Myplace team to diversify communication methods
Team work makes the dream work
- Ok, we confess this isn’t a new one but the Myplace team was invaluable in ensuring the successful deployment of our prototype
- We ran training sessions with the support team and project officers so that they understood the purpose of the project and how to use the team’s chosen prototype technological platform, Hubspot, to track prospects through the pipeline
- Parts of the prototype test required extensive organisation and was a significant change to processes so the smooth running of our test is testament to how communicating effectively as a team yields great results
Our prototype reduced drop offs in the pipeline by 25%
- In comparison to drop offs from initial referral to registration, this dropped by 25%
- This showed that our strategy of introducing key communications touchpoints during the referral process successfully kept prospects engaged until at least the registration stage
- We also managed to keep prospects in the funnel for longer than previously- meaning prospects had more of an opportunity to consider ecotherapy and we had more opportunities to discuss the programme with them
- The results of our prototype test showed there was no significant difference between the drop off rate for each pathway. This might be due to time constraints and our convenience sampling
- In future we would recommend testing the multimedia pathway and the SMS pathway in a longitudinal test in order to understand the impact of multimedia content on prospect attrition
The Lancashire Wildlife Trust’s perspective
- The last few months have really helped us unpick where anxieties occur and why during registration
- The value for users of setting clear expectations and timeframes is huge, and actually not that difficult to achieve
- Whilst technology can play a role in improving access to Myplace, this needs to be implemented carefully to avoid issues with the digital divide
- This is an issue that lots of people genuinely struggle with. There are lots of excellent services or activities out there, and lots of people wanting to engage. There is a real need not just for ‘more’ but better pathways through
- It is hugely helpful to work on your service design and development with an impartial but skilled third party
