A Safe Hub for Scotland’s young people//

Creative MW was commissioned to create and brand an online presence for the Scottish Government initiative to produce a toolkit for teachers and other professionals to use when confronted with the issue of domestic abuse.

The resource was also to provide young people who may be exposed to domestic abuse valuable information for coping and contact information of organisations in their area that could help. Two websites; SafeHub.org and DARTSS.org were produced and launched to target both audiences effectively.

Project Background//

The Scottish Government is committed to the National Domestic Abuse Prevention Plan, which has been developed over the past three years to deliver a national strategy to tackle abuse in the classroom, and to raise awareness and skill levels among teachers and professionals working in the area, as well as providing resources for children and young people to empower them. The Scottish Government teamed up with Zero Tolerance and Edinburgh University to deliver the project.

Objectives//

The overall objective is to reduce domestic abuse in Scotland and enable professionals and young people to act to reduce the harm caused by those directly and indirectly exposed to domestic abuse. The client wanted Creative MW to create a toolkit for professionals; a place where they can access information and resources to improve their own understanding and praxis in their dealings with children young people exposed to domestic abuse. We were also to create a place where professionals can share their own experience and locally developed resources, to form a repository of knowledge. The resource allows children and young people of all ages to access information and services in a safe environment.

Strategy//

It quickly became apparent that the branding for the two target audiences should be distinct. On the one hand the resources toolkit for professionals would be quickly identified as the right place for teachers and other professionals to come to. We came up with the name acronym DARTSS, and the rather more grand title of Domestic Abuse Resources and Training for Schools in Scotland.

The DARTSS logo and identity we delivered would be attractive to educators, but might be a turn off for young people, so we worked with the Scottish Government and a group of young experts to create a website for children and young people called Safe Hub. Many of the ideas and much of the content would be inspired and written by these young people. They wanted a brand and a website that would be “interactive and funky”.

Because of privacy and safety concerns we had to limit some aspects of social media technologies such as Facebook, to protect the identities of those using the site. So we used video, quizzes and images to tell the story and involve young people, whether or not they have been affected directly by these issues, allowing them to discover more about domestic abuse. At the same time children and young people who have been affected by these issues are encouraged to make contact with people and agencies that are there to help.
The two websites would be strongly linked to encourage cross over, so teachers would point young people to the Safe Hub site and visa versa.

Testimonials//

“The accepted design was extremely creative and captured the concept in a way that I would never have considered possible. The concepts were both creative and extremely sensitive to the issues we were dealing with.

In relation to both websites, Creative MW produced work of a very high standard, a variety of designs which were thoughtful and well considered in relation to the content that they were going to carry. Overall I am extremely happy with their work.”

Laura Meikle, Scottish Government.

“I just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to you and your team - it is an incredible achievement!”
Artemis Pana, Edinburgh University.