What we’re learning about how to improve digital support for young people

A young woman on a station platform scrolling through her smart phone

In this post, we share our emerging observations from our research looking into essential digital support for young people. Our overall aim for the project is to understand how and why young people are using online services and support to help them with their essential needs, like health, housing and money, and to identify where there are opportunities for strategic change to make support more accessible and youth-led. 

Following the first phase of our research for Nominet which we outlined in our previous post, we have spent time interviewing service leaders, managers, and designers from 10 organisations providing digital support to young people. We also held a sector workshop to test our initial findings and refine the areas where there is the biggest potential to intervene.

We want to thank everyone who took part in either an interview or the workshop for helping to shape the findings, which will ultimately help inform how Nominet designs its future programmes.

What does digital support for young people look like currently? 

Digitisation of essential support

Since the Covid pandemic, the development of digital offers has taken place very rapidly. In many cases this has seen the replacement or supplementation of some face-to-face services with digital support. Some interviewees spoke of the benefits of being able to reach far more people and in different ways.   

A number of organisations spoke of online advice and support as a way to help people proactively before they need to come into visit a service, and take pressure off critical face-to-face services which typically cost far more to deliver.

Where is digital most effective?  

However, due to the rapid digitisation of many services, there are questions over quality and appropriateness of digital support versus face-to-face support. A common concern, expressed both in interviews and the sector workshop, is a perceived trend towards digital provision being seen as a ‘magic bullet’ to replace more resource-intensive face-to-face provision.

For example, one interviewee said they worried about whether “the line between face-to-face and digital services, and what is most appropriate and effective about each, is clear enough?” and that “digital is being expected to pick up the pieces where face-to-face is being cut back". 

It may be beneficial for the sector as a whole to learn from the pandemic about what worked when moving online as well as what didn’t, and to develop a clear understanding of what kind of channels and tools are most appropriate and effective for different kinds of support.

For example, a face-to-face meeting, phonecall or video chat might be more effective than a webchat for the most complex problems, but not all young people feel comfortable with video calls, and some may not have enough data to use them regularly. 

A spectrum of support provided online 

Digital support doesn’t come in one format, or with one single audience or purpose. Different ways of providing support digitally will suit young people with differing needs, and at different points in their journey. We have split these into five broad categories: 

Online signposting: Information available online to help young people find support, ranging from dedicated online directories of services such as the Hub of Hope, to service finder tools or webpages listing and linking to a range of different support services. One example is Brook, a national sexual health charity for young people delivering clinical services as well as online advice and support. Their "Find a service" tool is the most used part of their website. It’s built using NHS APIs and is integrated into their chatbot function to point young people to the nearest relevant support service.

Online information and advice: Most services offer some form of information and advice online either through dedicated advice pages, online resources or digital tools. The National Deaf Children’s Society provide a range of online support for children, young people and families on a wide range of issues. They have a dedicated website, The Buzz, designed specifically for young people with sections for children aged 12 and under and children 13 and over.

Dedicated helplines: Helplines, often integrated with phone, live webchat and email support, are also relatively common ways of providing support online. The  National Domestic Abuse Helpline is a 24-hour helpline for women and children suffering domestic abuse. Anyone can contact the helpline by freephone, live webchat, or send an online message. They also run a BSL Helpline from 10am-6pm Mon-Fri.

Digital specialist support: There are also a growing number of examples of clinical or direct specialist services or support being delivered online or with a digital element integrated. Kooth is a mental health & wellbeing platform for children and young people’ and a free, safe and anonymous place for young people to find online support and counselling. Kooth provides an online counselling service that uses CBT techniques to support young people experiencing mental health problems.

Integrated digital and face to face support: While less commonly seen in our research, a number of advice services are designed with specific digital and face to face elements, which young people can move between or make use of concurrently. Citizens’ Advice provides an integrated online, telephone and face to face advice service. Their website includes over 1000 pieces of up to date online advice, they run a helpline where people can get advice from an advisor over the phone or via a live webchat function, and for more complicated cases or where people can’t access phone or online advice, they offer local face to face support by appointment. 

Our next post will explore how our findings have coalesced into some high level themes, which point towards areas for improvement and innovation.