Case Study: City of London and Hackney Council improves digital access for children and families with Unboxed

City of London and Hackney Council builds 11-mission digital access strategy with Unboxed

Unboxed partnered with the City of London and Hackney Council to address a challenge in their children and family services ecosystem. The issue was not a lack of services, but the extreme difficulty families and young people faced in finding, understanding, and navigating the available support. Information was fragmented across council, NHS, and voluntary sector websites, forcing residents to perform "detective work" and creating a high emotional and practical burden for both families and the professionals trying to help them.

The solution implemented by Unboxed was a Phase 1 discovery project involving extensive user research with families, young people, and stakeholders. This human-centred approach included service design, journey mapping, and a digital estate audit. Rather than delivering a fixed product, Unboxed created a strategic framework featuring 11 long-term missions and a practical test-and-learn model for low-risk experiments. The results were a robust, shared evidence base and a realistic, flexible strategy that aligned stakeholders and provided a clear foundation for improving digital access in a complex environment.

City of London and Hackney Council