In 2024, Access Social Care received a grant of £15,000 to develop a Carers’ Toolkit to integrate into AccessAva, its free online legal advice tool. The aim of the toolkit was to support family carers by helping them understand and assert their legal rights early on, and to improve carers’ own wellbeing and the quality of care for those they support.
Whilst the project initially set out three main outcomes – to improve carers’ understanding of their rights and access to relevant support, to improve carers’ knowledge of the rights of those they care for, and to achieve this by developing a Carers’ Toolkit within AccessAva – it soon became clear that the existing chatbot format was too limited for the complexity of the toolkit. As a result, the organisation pivoted towards developing a new prototype with a more flexible user experience, an approach agreed the WCIT Charity.
The new prototype has enabled a more modular, user-friendly format and laid the groundwork for future enhancements. And while the toolkit is still in the prototype phase, it represents a major step forward in achieving the organisation’s long-term vision of providing robust, accessible legal tools for the UK’s 4.7 million carers.
