The Challenge

The Ministry of Justice, through its partner organisation Cafcass, was using a fragmented, manual process to refer families to support services — Using email to send manual forms to shared inboxes managed by a large admin team.

This complexity didn’t just slow things down — it introduced risk. Reports were lost, referrals stalled, and social workers wasted hours chasing updates instead of helping families. Wait times stretched to three months.

We needed to redesign more than a form. We needed to reimagine the entire referral journey — making it faster, clearer, and easier to manage across agencies.


“I submit a plan and just hope someone picks it up. Sometimes we don’t hear anything for weeks.”
— Family Court Advisor

From Forms to Service

I designed a new digital service to help Cafcass frontline staff coordinate support for families — replacing email chains and document folders with a structured, role-specific referral platform.

The system gives social workers, managers, and providers exactly what they need to progress a case: dashboards with live status, built-in approval flows, smart notifications, and automated invoicing triggers.

By surfacing key actions, clarifying ownership, and removing bottlenecks, the platform reduced wait times, improved oversight, and made referrals faster, clearer, and more accountable — without increasing admin burden.

Approach

Supporting Social Workers: "I need to be able to quickly initiate a referral, and follow it through to completion.”

Problem
Social workers needed to move fast — but the old process was slow, manual, and scattered. There was no easy way to see what had been submitted, what needed follow-up, or where things were blocked.

Approach
I focused the design around three key needs: speed, visibility, and ease of use. That meant clear status tracking, mobile-ready forms that could be filled in on the go, and a dashboard that showed exactly what needed attention.

Outcome
The result was a referral experience built for real-world pressure — faster to submit, easier to track, and simple to use in the moment.

Empowering Managers: “I need to track that we’re adhering to SLAs — and provide that information rapidly to leadership.”

Problem
Managers needed to be able to report on SLA adherences to senior leadership, while balancing the approval of submitted plans. They're stretched for time, and need to move fast.

Approach
I designed a manager-specific view that surfaced what mattered most: upcoming and overdue tasks, plan and payment approvals, and at-a-glance SLA performance. This enabled faster reviews and made reporting effortless.

Outcome
Managers could now approve work quickly, monitor service performance in real time, and confidently report progress — even under pressure from senior leadership or government.

Providers Working With Children: “I need to focus on spending time working with the children... ideally fill out the report while I’m with them.”

Problem
Providers were often working off-site, supporting families directly — but the tools didn’t support that reality. Reporting had to happen back at base, and there was little visibility into whether submissions were accepted or when payments would follow.

Approach
I designed tablet-friendly report flows that made it easy to complete and submit work in the field — with clear prompts, autosave, and minimal typing. I also surfaced key information about report status and invoicing, so they could stay informed without needing to ask.

Outcome
Providers could now work and report in one flow — reducing delays, increasing accuracy, and giving them confidence that their submissions were seen, processed, and on track for payment.

Building Communication In from Day One

Problem
Deadlines were tight, and users — especially social workers — were rarely sitting at a desk or logged into the system.

Approach
I designed email and notification flows to keep momentum going outside the app. From report submissions to pending approvals, each key event triggered a clear, timely message — so users stayed informed without needing to log in and check.

Outcome
Actions moved forward faster, users felt confident they weren’t missing anything, and the service worked with their reality — not against it.

Simplifying Social Care Referrals

The Child & Family Arrangements Portal replaced a patchwork of inboxes, Word docs, and manual approvals with a purpose-built system that worked for everyone involved.

Over the course of 3 months, I led research, service design, and delivery planning — translating broad requirements into a focused, role-based experience for social workers, managers, and providers.

We launched with:

  • A referral dashboard for social workers, showing status at a glance and enabling faster submissions in the field

  • Approval tools for managers, supporting SLA oversight and leadership reporting

  • Tablet-friendly workflows for providers, making it easier to work, report, and stay updated — without added admin

  • Built-in email notifications, ensuring everyone stayed informed, even when away from the app

Outcomes & Reflections

The Result


⏱ Cut waiting times from 3 months to 1
📉 Reduced admin costs by £320k annually
🤝 Improved collaboration across roles
📈 Set a foundation for further transformation inside a complex public sector ecosystem

This wasn’t just digitising a form — it was reimagining how frontline staff, contractors, and leadership could work together to support families, faster.

Reflections

This project reinforced the value of lean research and clear alignment early on, especially when designing tools for frontline staff navigating sensitive, high-stakes environments. This became a strong reference for designing for front line staff. It demonstrated how to balance regulation and usability, collaborate across silos, and ground every decision in the lived realities of users working in contact centres, in office, and courtrooms.

If I were to do it again, I’d spend less time refining the invoicing workflows. While automating billing triggers was technically complex and critical for operations, the effort invested there outweighed its impact relative to other areas. I would have shifted more focus toward iterating on provider reporting flows or scaling manager dashboards sooner.