Empowering the NSPCC to even better protect children, using technology

About the NSPCC

As the UK’s leading children’s charity for over 130 years, the NSPCC has devoted itself to stopping child abuse and neglect. Through the collective commitment and passion of its staff, volunteers, supporters and partners, it helps to make a million children a year safer from abuse, and fights for every childhood.

The Challenge

As part of this noble cause, the NSPCC wanted to find ways to leverage information technology to enhance the support it provides to children. NSPCC recognised the need for specialist support in this evolution, specifically via an additional dedicated resource in its Business Technology team.

By identifying and actioning opportunities to deploy technology in live projects, it was recognised that this would in turn upskill and improve performance for the NSPCC’s workforce via increased adoption of existing Microsoft applications and their use in daily processes and tasks.

The NSPCC approached Transparity for specialist support to create this Technology Adoption Capability and bring the idea to life.

The Solution

To address the immediate need for dedicated resource, we proposed that all activity should be led by an experienced Adoption and Change Manager who would work part-time within the NSPCC’s Business Technology team and lay the foundations for management and operation by a permanent resource going forward.

We began by identifying the key pain points in the current system, to understand more about where best to focus our efforts and which issues needed to be addressed as a priority.

Based on these findings, we consulted with the NSPCC’s management team and proposed a range of high-profile initiatives to ensure technology played a more active role in everyday operations, across the board. These included:

• A reinvigorated Tech Trailblazers network, with a clear and defined leadership and strategy. Since starting this project, we are seeing consistently high engagement rates of 95% and above with users from across the organisation interacting with, and getting support from, their Tech Trailblazer colleagues!
• A scope of work and skills required for the full-time resource to perform their role.
• A comprehensive Technology Adoption Capability document, to form the strategic foundation for change and include required processes; cultural practices; terms of reference; an operational framework; roles, responsibilities and governance; supporting collateral and templates; reporting metrics to measure benefits; and other essential information.
• An informative monthly blog featuring useful tech updates, resources, changes and other insights, as well as a roadmap for what is coming and the option to maintain a two-way conversation via feedback and comments.

These initiatives were designed around the core principle of participation: to encourage those involved to enjoy the experience of educating themselves, to learn together by trying technology , and by sharing their experiences. We’re proud to see the NSPCC Microsoft 365 Adoption Score increasing at a steady pace, showing how these initiatives are proving successful in encouraging -greater adoption of the Microsoft 365 toolset across the organisation.

The Outcome

To date, these innovations and developments have been very well received throughout the NSPCC. Adoption levels are high and there is a real sense of value through this collaborative learning approach, enabled by Transparity’s solutions and support.

We continue to provide ongoing, in-depth guidance and advice which is available for everyone with a view to becoming more ‘tech savvy’ and increasing their understanding and use of technology in their work. The emphasis is always on practical learning, through an environment where people can dive in and test new things for themselves. There are no wrong answers, and the journey has only just begun!

By fostering a culture of curiosity, and a sense of bravery in self-learning, we are supporting the NSPCC effectively in its digital transformation. In turn, this will help the organisation to support children and young people in need, when it matters most.