Susan O’Flaherty

Vulnerable witnesses, including those using video link, are prepared and supported by a range of different professionals and volunteers for their court appearance. This issue had been highlighted by a number of video link assistants working within the Courts Service in various locations outside of Dublin. Changes in legislation have led to an increase in the focus on preparing witnesses and as a result a lack of clarity between these often new and different roles. While one option proposed was to standardise this process, it was clear that a one-size-fits-all would not work around the country. While the Criminal Court of Justice in Dublin is a model of best practice and has purpose-built facilities, the other courthouses around the country vary considerably, this was highlighted as an issue particularly when travelling to a courthouse that is less familiar.

Compass is a trauma-informed programme which aims to bring together the various stakeholders, including the vulnerable witness, to work together to develop solutions and build a local network. The pilot project runs in one location over a three month period and after an evaluation, is then replicated in two other locations and at regional level. The long-term objective is to establish a local and regional Community in Practice taking a cross-disciplinary and cross-agency approach.

An overall programme was developed which was supported with a Facilitator’s Workbook and a set of prompt cards, to be used during the first workshop.

COMMUNITY CORNER

Food Cloud tasked us to help reimagine their education offering. The Food Cloud Academy had been developed over three years mainly as an online accredited course, which was self-directed. While excellent resources had been developed, drawing on experience built up by the community partners who work with Food Cloud, the format and delivery method were not always suitable for the people needing to upskill. Some of the learners were based in remote areas and were not able to travel, some were volunteers and could not commit to a full day’s training. During the research phase, workshops with charity partners, in-person training and peer-to-peer learning was preferred. However this was often not feasible due to time and financial pressures within the charity sector.

The Fooddiverse app matches surplus food providers with charity partners and helps them to manage their allocation and collection of surplus food. It is being used in several countries, which meant that there were limitations on what new features could be added to the existing app.

Community Corner is an exploration of how the existing app could be further developed to support community partners getting started on their learning journey in an accessible, free and fun way. There are three new features. Firstly, a discussion board for community members to connect with and learn from each other and to help co-create future events, secondly a map-based directory, where users can identify partners and other services working in their area and finally an interactive learning hub with case studies, bite-sized videos and documentation and check lists, all of which were filterable and could be collated to create customised learning journeys depending on the individual needs of the user.

The development & testing of the concept includes paper-prototyping, usability testing and gathering feedback from FoodCloud’s Charity Partners.