Stroud Court Community Trust (SCCT)

12 May 2020

“I’m genuinely grateful for LiveSpace. It’s really helped us”

Established in 1983 by a group of parents with autistic children, Stroud Court provides year-round and life-long support for up to 39 autistic people. Working within a calm and structured environment, Stroud Court’s aim is to improve the quality of life for every single resident.

Stroud Court wanted to welcome their visitors with information presented in a dynamic and interesting way. The foyer at the entrance is the main hub for over 100 staff and numerous visitors too, making it a perfect place to keep everyone informed and up to date with the latest information.

Helen Kay of Stroud Court explains how their building made it difficult to welcome people the way they would have liked: “We wanted to be able to welcome people promptly, share important information, and to help people understand autism. This was difficult as our reception is in a listed building, so we can’t change much. This meant people were turning up and having to follow laminated signs.”

Whilst waiting elsewhere for an appointment, Helen saw how digital signage might help: “I had a long wait for an appointment, and there was a digital signage screen in the waiting room. I enjoyed seeing the messages, and that made me think; ‘we need something like this at Stroud Court’.”

“We wanted to welcome visitors with positive images and important messages.”

Stroud Court asked us to provide a LiveSpace system that enabled their staff to easily share messages and good news stories containing images and video. The brief was to provide a way of sharing news about events and the wide variety of activities taking place at the Stroud Court, with visitors and staff.

Helen explains: “The main thing we wanted was a welcoming and animated way to greet people in our reception area. We wanted to share positive images of autistic people, things that are going on around the site, and important safety messages – like ‘have you read one of our safeguarding leaflets?’.”

“It’s amazingly easy to use, and I’m not a techie person at all. It’s really, really accessible.”

As always, we worked with our client to make sure they have everything they need. Stroud Court use our standard LiveSpace software. This is a simple to use cloud service giving them confident control of their screens.

Everything in LiveSpace has been designed to be familiar and easily recognisable, drawing on user experiences with commonly used software. We have made workflows simple, ensuring the system is comfortable and speedy to use.

Stroud Court use a hardware unit from our range of mini media players. These units are small enough to fit neatly in the palm of your hand, making them easy to hide behind the screen and accessible when required.

“I don’t know how we lived without it. If you list all the things we do with it, it’s amazing really.”

Staff at the trust are enthusiastic about using the screen and very quickly created a great set of well-designed and informative pages.

It was clear from the outset that the residents enjoyed the content displayed on the screen as much as everyone else. It has become a great talking point and a place for residents to frequently drop by.

Helen says: “We celebrate all our residents’ birthdays now. We put up a picture they understand, which is a cake, the words happy birthday and a picture of them too”.

Helen explains how staff achievements are also celebrated: “All our staff have to undertake a national qualification; the Care Certificate. Before there would be a quiet ‘well done’ from a member of staff. But now we put it up on the screen with their photo and certificate, so everybody knows they’ve done well, and can congratulate them in person.”

“As soon as the virus hit, the screen really came into its own.”

Communicating fast-changing government guidance on Covid-19 was a big challenge for all care homes. Helen told us how LiveSpace helped:

“Sometimes you’d have something huge which would change within a 24-hour period, which you’d have to communicate.

“We could instantly put up handwashing messages in easy to read type. So, rather than having to photocopy information and get it round to everybody we were able to immediately get in on screen.

“The messages coming from the government seemed to change every single day for care homes. Using LiveSpace meant that staff and visitors were able to go immediately on arrival and see on screen what the latest guidance was.”

There are lots of ways you can help the team at Stroud Court. To learn more visit: http://www.stroudcourt.org.uk/