Barnardo’s – building a website to improve future prospects for young people
Barnardo’s have come a long way since their founder, Thomas Barnardo set up a ‘ragged school’ to help disadvantaged children in 1867. From those early days through to more recent times, Barnardo’s are nationally recognised for providing care and support to hundreds of thousands of children, young people, parents, and carers across the UK.
In addition to this, for over 35 years, Barnardo’s has delivered and continues to deliver employment, training and skills support (ETS) courses, which allow young people to gain recognised skills and qualifications that they can build and develop upon throughout their adult working life.
In partnership with employers, schools, colleges and charities, Barnardo’s provide training and support to over 3,000 young people aged between 14 to 29 every year through 20 specialist centres.
For young people who have just left school, or are looking to enter employment, they provide careers advice on a one-to-one basis, and locate training and employment opportunities in areas local to them, including apprenticeship programmes and other qualifications recognised by employers. And it doesn’t stop there! Once in employment, Barnardo’s provide much needed on-going support to make sure everything continues to run smoothly.
We were delighted when Barnardo’s approached Blumilk earlier this year to see how we could support them with the design and build of their ETS website, which would stand alone as a showcase for the range of courses available from September 2022 through to August 2023.
Beginning with an initial scoping meeting, it was important to understand the exact requirements of the website and the audience demographic we were aiming at. Through a staged process of concept work, wire framing, individual page design layouts and full web build, we were able to create an easy to use, engaging website which gives consideration to UX and UI, ensuring the best possible user experience.
Once fully built, the next step in the process involved engaging in a series of CMS training sessions to support the Barnardo’s ETS team in our Newcastle office and their offices in Perth and London. These sessions comprised a full training session with many of the Barnardo’s ETS team including Barnardo’s ETS Head of Operations. Staff gained valuable insight on how to add content and imagery and how to keep the website looking fresh with regular news and updated content without compromising the layout and style of the site.
To find out more about Barnardo’s and the support available for children, young people and families via the 800-plus services across the United Kingdom, please visit: www.barnardos.org.uk
Regardless of the size, type of business or project need, Blumilk will always find the most effective business solutions to help make the most of your business operations. If you have a business need that you’d like support with, from creative campaigns, branding and websites to digital marketing we are here to help you. Contact us we’d love to chat to you.