LET’S GET COMMUNITIES CONNECTED – UTILISING TECH FOR GOOD IN JUSTICE

Connecting & engaging people to the service and supports they need in their own communities has been a long-standing ambition and objective of our Community Justice Partnership in Glasgow. This ambition cuts across many of the themes set out in our Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan including:

• Prevention – we know through evidence (see for example What Works to Reduce Re-Offending- A Summary of Evidence), research (see for examples Children & Young Peoples’ Centre for Justice (CYCJ) Website) and our own experience, that if people are connected, and receive the support they need at an early/earlier stage (Youth Groups for example or alternatives to prosecution and custody), they are much more likely to step onto a more positive pathway in life. In summary if we can address the underlying drivers of offending behaviour, there is less risk of coming into contact with the justice system or – for those who already have, of re-offending.  For an explanation of the social factors and phycology behind this you can see for example an article in the 2019-20 Annual Reporter – Meeting the Challenges form the Roots Up  or Severe & Multiple Disadvantage at the Root of Offending Behaviour.

• Protective Factors – as above but with a specific focus on connecting people with the specific services/opportunities that can help address the factors known to reduce the risk of further offending including, Housing, Employability, Health & Wellbeing.

• Communication/Engagement/Service User Voice – the App will help us to deliver on out Strategy for Purposeful Engagement.  Helping us to Reach out to Communities (geographical communities, communities of interest etc.), providing opportunities to improve knowledge, understand and confidence in Community Justice and for people to participate and engage in out planning and delivery of Community Justice in Glasgow. 

• Other Themes & Priorities – for all of the other themes and priorities (Women, Victims, Families, Service & Resource Alignment, Throughcare) the connecting opportunities of the App into every area of Glasgow – from high level strategic organisation to grass roots services – will help everyone trying to connect people with services right across the justice agenda and way beyond.

Developing the solution – A Directory of Interventions/Services for the Community Justice arena has been a regularly expressed priority and ask from Community Justice Glasgow Partners and wider stakeholders.  

The complexity, scope and breadth of services that contribute to the reducing re-offending agenda lies not only with Criminal Justice, Social Work and the Police but much further afield including (but not limited to) Public, 3^rd Sector and Grass Roots organisations delivering services in Health & Wellbeing, Employability, Housing, Prison Throughcare, Sport, the Arts etc.  

Given the scale of possibilities when making referrals to organisations who can provide a service to meet an individual’s need, particularly in their own local communities, it is not possible for referring services to know everything that is available in a particular area or Ward of the City.  Options such as paper-based directories have been tried without much success in the past.  The main issues associated with these were:

• Funding streams change constantly and with them services/criteria for referring etc. – i.e. out of date almost as soon as it is published.
• Resource intense to keep up to date and make accessible to the services/people who need to use it.
• Only records the tip of the iceberg in terms of possible services to include.

The 3rd Sector partner in the project – Glasgow Girls Club – has experience in producing digital solutions and recently ran a Community Connectors pilot for girls and young women in the North of Glasgow. The aim of the pilot was to scope and develop a structured framework to connect girls and young women, who were at risk of crisis, in or coming out of crisis, with a network of resources and activities, so that they could reach positive destinations. Working with a steering group and a bank of local services and local 3rd Sector and Public Sector agencies, including Glasgow City Council and the Health & Social Care Partnership, Glasgow Girls Club developed an understanding of how to provide localised digital signposting solutions that will help towards joint ambitions of a more connected community.

Let’s Get Communities Connected (LGCC) APP – LGCC is an App based digital directory, commissioned by Community Justice Glasgow,  its development is currently funded by a partnership of Glasgow Health & Social Care Partnership (GCHSCP) (Community Justice Section 27 Grant), Glasgow City Council Social Recovery Funding and North Glasgow (NG) Homes and in-kind support from Glasgow Girls Club. The App is being designed for smart phones – and will be available as a progressive web App, a native App and will also be available for use on laptops via a URL.

The App aims to provide tailored, easy access and portable information to referring services and those with lived experience of the Justice System (Service Users) around the services available (Statutory, Public Sector, 3rd Sector and Grass Roots level) to meet the presenting needs (issues that may be driving their offending behaviour) of service users and those services that can meet their aspirations and longer term sustainable goals in their own communities – with a view to reducing the risk of further offending.  

The App will work at Glasgow City Council Ward and city-wide service levels  and is strategically aligned to the Glasgow Community Justice Outcome Improvement Plan (2018-2023),  National Strategy for Community Justice,  The Digital Glasgow Strategy,  Glasgow City Council’s Social Recovery Planning and Glasgow Community Plan.

The main benefits of the LGCC App will be:

• The App will link out directly to websites, social media pages such as Facebook etc., whilst keeping the user connected to the App/digital platform – negating the need to rely on a single point of updating and the resource intensity that goes with that. 
• Sustainability is achievable through a community led Steering Group, identifying local champions in each Ward area (voluntary community connectors) who will be trained by Glasgow Girls Club to update content as appropriate, providing an employability skills training pathway into digital for those who volunteer as community connector champions. 
• Employability Pathways – These training opportunities will proactively support people affected by the justice system and those who are furthest from the workplace, to gain useful digital skills, build aspiration and illuminate pathways into further education, employment and / or other opportunities within 3rd and Digital Sector. By providing this type of preventative pathway and support towards employment we can help to reduce re-offending, and antisocial behaviour which will help to reintegrate people to become positively contributing members of our communities.
• Opportunities for efficiencies across the Community Justice Partnership, for example,
  
  • Scottish Prison Service – Throughcare.
  • Health Services – Potential use for social prescribing.
  • Police Scotland – Custody Navigators / Community Justice Hub / Positive Outcomes Project.
  • Social Work Services – identifying services to meet individual needs / identify and leverage in new formal and informal partners.

Open Data, Innovation and a Social Enterprise 

The LGCC App skin, once fully developed will be available for other Local Authority Areas or projects to purchase, with the purchaser able to include their own branding etc. and upload their own local data, essentially creating their own bespoke directory for whichever purpose/focus/lens suits their needs.  Any profits will be re-invested to develop and deliver employability pathways into Tech for people coming into contact with the justice system in Glasgow.

Glasgow Girls Club aims to help link in the grassroots wellbeing directory (ALISS) landscape and in doing so, help to build 3rd digital capacity and avoid or reduce duplication of information and of effort for all.  All information added to the database will be available for people to find via Let’s Get and also freely available as Open Data for any other grassroots organisations wishing to surface (pull in) through their very own branded skin. 

Ambitions – Delivery of the first iteration of the LGCC App is just the beginning of the journey.  Going forward looking through a ‘tech for good’ lens, Glasgow Girls Club are scoping out a future business model that can sustain the drive in this direction including bringing in sponsors and investors with the potential for Public Social Partnership approach being taken.  Possible future enhancements include:

• Match making – using personal profile building to anonymously auto-match users to services. 
• Harvesting raw data about services – current provision / gaps analysis – things searched for but not available – assist with planning & commissioning etc.
• Refer Now button.
• Print/share a ‘social prescription’.
• Application Programming Interface (API) functionality (allows to software applications to talk to each other). 

Glasgow Girls Club & Community Justice Glasgow are developing strategic alliances and exploring opportunities for joined up thinking with other city wide and national ambitions around social renewal, open data and digital inclusion. Existing relationships are also being built upon and the potential for in-kind tech support from the likes of Morgan Stanley being explored.

The reception for the development of the App across Community Justice Working Groups and further afield has been extremely positive, Bernadette Monaghan, Director of Community Empowerment and Equalities, Glasgow City Council recently commented that:

“The ambition for social good demonstrated in this work will benefit organisations and communities right across Glasgow – far beyond the Community Justice landscape. Connecting the people in our communities to the opportunities and support that can help them live as positive a life as possible, is so important in delivering our vision for Glasgow, as a City where inequality is reduced and opportunity is maximised, so that we have a thriving, inclusive economy that benefits all of our citizens.”

 

“This exiting use of technology for good, coupled with a grass roots and community level focus – to overcome previous difficulties in providing this much needed product is very welcome.I very much look forward to it being available across all the Wards of Glasgow.”

ALISS: Mutual Utility – Collaborating for More Effective, Efficient Public Resources 

Both the Health & Social Care Alliance (The Alliance), Glasgow Girls Club/Community Justice Glasgow have a vision for more innovation and collaboration around using digital to make a complicated web landscape more joined up and easier to navigate for the end users.

Both ALISS and the Let’s Get Communities Connected APP aim to make the finding of relevant information more easily accessible and available to hyperlocal audiences, and technical options exist to link systems, and to work together with others towards these shared ambitions.

Shared Objectives 

• Both are strategically aligned to Scottish Government priorities.
• Both use an ethos of ‘community connector’ models.
• Both rely on an anchor(s) model to keep the information up to date:
  • coproduced with information being community sourced and collectively maintained.
  • training community volunteers (additional benefit of providing routes into Tech jobs).
• More joined up landscape.
• More efficient and effective.
• Widen access to services in people’s own communities. 

There is great potential here for a partnership, not only for Glasgow but across Scotland.  In the simplest of terms, the Let’s Get Communities Connected App project is using resources and networks to map and maintain a services database in Glasgow, which with some development and joint innovation efforts could also be synchronised with, and of direct benefit to ALISS (+ vice versa).  

Timescale – the Let’s Get Local App will continue to be populated with all of the services and information over the remainder of 2021.  At time of writing the launch is on target for January 2022 – WATCH THIS SPACE!