Care Leavers App
The Care Leavers App is already being used by local authorities to communicate with their care leavers. As well as publishing a Local Offer, leaving care teams can now engage effectively with young people through secure, private messaging.
Features
- Customisable by each local authority
- Secure, private messaging between care leavers and leaving care teams
- Updateable pages of information, advice and guidance
- Searchable listings of events and local services
- Translation of content into over 100 languages
- Reporting and analytics on app usage
- Mini address book for storing contact details
- Browseable without wifi / internet connection
- Favourites listings.
Benefits
- Meet duties from Children and Social Work Act
- Publish a Local Offer for care leavers
- ISO9001:2015 certified
- Provides care leavers with information and advice 24/7 basis
- Available for iOS and Android devices
- No limits on users, downloads or admin users
- Already in use by local authorities across the UK
- Engage and communicate with young people through messaging
Pricing
£8,000 to £16,000 a unit
Service documents
Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format,
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Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.
Framework
G-Cloud 11
Service ID
1 4 6 0 6 1 4 3 9 7 2 3 0 8 1
Contact
This is Focus Ltd
Simon Newing
Telephone: 01179498008
Email: simon.newing@thisisfocus.co.uk
Service scope
- Software add-on or extension
- No
- Cloud deployment model
- Public cloud
- Service constraints
- The Care Leavers App is available for iOS and Android platforms.
- System requirements
-
- IOS v6+
- Android v4+
- Internet / wifi for App install and setup
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
- Support queries are generally acknowledged same day, during UK business hours.
- User can manage status and priority of support tickets
- No
- Phone support
- Yes
- Phone support availability
- 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
- Web chat support
- No
- Onsite support
- Onsite support
- Support levels
-
Technical support is available:
Monday to Thursday 9am to 5.30pm
Friday 9am to 5pm.
Weekend, out of hours and support during bank holidays is not available.
Support is provided to local authority administration teams, rather than App end users.
Urgent support enquiries that prevent our software from operating (and are within our control) are responded to within four business hours and as priority over other tasks. Other non-urgent support queries are
responded to within two working days but usually much quicker.
Support can be raised through email or phone through our account management team. All queries are logged, tracked and audited through our internal project and task management system and following our ISO9001 processes.
Technical support forms part of our annual account management package which is priced £4000 annually. - Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
-
The main elements required to start the service are training and content and data loading.
Some content is available for local authorities to use through our syndicated partners.
A single training session for the web-based administration system is included with all new contracts and can take place on-site, at our Bristol office or remotely across the internet. In our experience training usually takes around one half day.
Alongside training, several other sources of help are available. All administration systems are supplied with a library of screencasts - short videos that take users through every day tasks ‘step by step’ - and printed documentation and user guides. We also have an account management team ready to provide help, assistance and answers to any questions.
We can also assist with content and data loading. - Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
- End-of-contract data extraction
- Data is available for export through the administration system. Other data can be exported on request by our support team.
- End-of-contract process
-
Clients can choose to continue to use the service. Ongoing costs that cover technical support and account management apply whilst the service is being used.
Any data that requires extraction and returning to the client will be done so on request.
Clients are granted a licence to use our software rather than owning any software, IPR or copyright and that licence, along with any associated services, ends when the contract does. Content will be removed at end of contract and although Apps may remain installed and functional on end devices, there will be no content served.
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- No
- Application to install
- Yes
- Compatible operating systems
-
- Android
- IOS
- Designed for use on mobile devices
- Yes
- Differences between the mobile and desktop service
- The App is designed to work on mobile smartphones and tablets, rather than desktop
- Service interface
- No
- API
- No
- Customisation available
- Yes
- Description of customisation
-
The 'look and feel' of the Care Leavers App, including the name, can be customised in line with any branding or corporate requirements.
All content within the App can be customised by each local authority.
Any customisation is usually discussed with the account management team to assess implications on cost and timescales.
Scaling
- Independence of resources
- Not applicable to App-based service.
Analytics
- Service usage metrics
- Yes
- Metrics types
- Analytics on App downloads and usage are available through the administration dashboard and monthly reports. Statistics include number of downloads, popular areas of content, average time spent using the App, language counts and average number of pages viewed per session.
- Reporting types
-
- API access
- Real-time dashboards
- Regular reports
- Reports on request
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Not a reseller
Staff security
- Staff security clearance
- Staff screening not performed
- Government security clearance
- None
Asset protection
- Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Data storage and processing locations
- United Kingdom
- User control over data storage and processing locations
- No
- Datacentre security standards
- Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
- Penetration testing frequency
- Less than once a year
- Penetration testing approach
- In-house
- Protecting data at rest
- Encryption of all physical media
- Data sanitisation process
- No
- Equipment disposal approach
- A third-party destruction service
Data importing and exporting
- Data export approach
- Data is available for export through the administration system. Other data can be exported on request by our support team.
- Data export formats
- CSV
- Data import formats
- CSV
Data-in-transit protection
- Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
- Data protection within supplier network
- TLS (version 1.2 or above)
Availability and resilience
- Guaranteed availability
- Generally availability of Apps depends on individuals devices and third parties such as Apple's App Store and Google Play.
- Approach to resilience
- Not applicable to Apps.
- Outage reporting
-
Outages are generally dependent on the individuals device and third party vendors such as Apple and Google.
Any service-wide outages, including those that might affect the web-based administration area, are reported to our technical team via email and SMS text messaging.
Identity and authentication
- User authentication needed
- No
- Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
- Management interfaces are accessed only by authorised account holders with appropriate login details. All login attempts are logged and suspicious logins investigated.
- Access restriction testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Management access authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Username or password
Audit information for users
- Access to user activity audit information
- Users contact the support team to get audit information
- How long user audit data is stored for
- At least 12 months
- Access to supplier activity audit information
- Users contact the support team to get audit information
- How long supplier audit data is stored for
- At least 12 months
- How long system logs are stored for
- At least 12 months
Standards and certifications
- ISO/IEC 27001 certification
- No
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- No
- PCI certification
- No
- Other security certifications
- No
Security governance
- Named board-level person responsible for service security
- Yes
- Security governance certified
- No
- Security governance approach
- Largely the responsibility of external parties hosting the App, such as Apple and Google
- Information security policies and processes
- Largely the responsibility of external parties who host the App, such as Apple and Google.
Operational security
- Configuration and change management standard
- Supplier-defined controls
- Configuration and change management approach
-
Changes are managed using our ISO9001:2015 accredited processes.
App development is version controlled and managed using GIT. All code is peer reviewed by senior technical staff before deployment and automated tests are used to spot code errors or any code that could compromise security. - Vulnerability management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Vulnerability management approach
- Vulnerability management are controlled by third parties such as technology vendors (Apple, Google etc).
- Protective monitoring type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Protective monitoring approach
-
Automated tests are used to identify potential compromises along with peer review of code by senior members of the technical team.
Any compromises are addressed immediately. - Incident management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Incident management approach
-
Incident management forms part of our ISO9001:2015 business processes including Disaster, Business Recovery and Back-Up Policies.
Incidents can be reported direct to the team through phone or email.
Any lessons learned are discussed for inclusion in ISO policy.
Secure development
- Approach to secure software development best practice
- Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed
Public sector networks
- Connection to public sector networks
- No
Pricing
- Price
- £8,000 to £16,000 a unit
- Discount for educational organisations
- No
- Free trial available
- No
Service documents
Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format,
email the supplier at simon.newing@thisisfocus.co.uk.
Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.