Children 1st protects families across Scotland with Dynamics 365

“All we want is to be supported by a worker who we know has our best interests at heart. I know you want to help my whole family. If I didn’t have you, there would be no one.”

These heartfelt lines, written by a group of young people supported by the Scottish nonprofit Children 1st, underscore the need for compassionate, family-centered care. Children 1st traces its roots to the 1800s, and it has focused on children’s safety and wellbeing ever since. 

“We make sure children are safe, secure, and loved,” explains Eileen Scouller, Assistant Director for Digital Development at Children 1st. “Children do well when families do well, so we offer whole family support. We work with children, parents, and sometimes a wider family network to help them address the challenges that they face.” The organization works with families in crisis, supports children and families who have experienced trauma and abuse, and helps families to build resilience.

Since 2020, Children 1st has been undergoing a digital transformation to accelerate its mission. In its latest effort, the nonprofit replaced its end-of-life and unsupported SQL database. “We needed a CRM that can keep up with us technically and reflect the inclusive way we work with children and families,” Scouller recalls. 

After ruling out off-the-shelf solutions or developing one themselves, leadership landed on Dynamics 365 Customer Service. Scouller noted that Dynamics 365 would integrate with the other Microsoft cloud-based solutions they already used, and the IT team was committed to becoming experts in Microsoft solutions. Children 1st turned to Microsoft partner Kerv Digital to spearhead the transition to Dynamics 365, calling the effort the Recording Our Work Project. 

“The project is great evidence that technology can move from a bottleneck to an enabler of change when it is designed and implemented correctly,” says Stuart Harper, CEO of Kerv Digital.  

The new Dynamics 365 solution enables and elevates the important work of frontline and behind-the-scenes workers alike. Here’s how.

Aligning technology to best practices of supporting families

The old database Children 1st used had baked-in, outdated language to refer to families and processes. Kerv helped the nonprofit tweak the names of fields to reflect how staff and families actually talk. They changed fields from “contact” to “person,” “incident” to “connection,” "referral” to “introduction,” and more. 

The flexibility within Dynamics 365 that allowed these changes is rubbing off on partner organizations, whose staff are beginning to adopt these more welcoming terms. “The small changes in language have a ripple effect not only with families but also our partners,” Scouller says. “That’s part of what Children 1st is about: pushing institutional change.”

The structure of the new Dynamics 365 system also influences how staff interact with families. Gone are the days when they would organize meetings with families around long checklists. In introductory meetings, staff instead ask about strengths and challenges through open-ended questions that correlate to fields within the Dynamics 365 record. They also moved where some questions, such as gender identity and ethnicity, sit within the intake flow, so children can self-identify during a conversation with Children 1st staff.  Respectfully gathering accurate data on identity helps build trust with families and helps the nonprofit better understand whom it supports. 

The Dynamics 365 system also incorporates Microsoft Power Apps that allow families to make a visual map of important relationships, such as siblings, grandparents, or teachers, to communicate and work with their family support workers. Ultimately, records that reflect complex webs of relationships empower staff to better help children.

Streamlining work to maximize time with families 

Children 1st and Kerv Digital prioritized ease-of-use when designing the new Dynamics 365 system. That way, staff could focus their energy on serving families, not on reading technical manuals or navigating clunky tools. “The word people use to describe it is ‘intuitive,’” Scouller says. 

Dynamics 365 seamlessly integrates with the rest of the Microsoft tools Children 1st uses. For example, attaching emails from Outlook into a family’s record in Dynamics 365 “has made a massive difference,” Scouller says. This easy fix replaces the old and time-intensive practice of copying and pasting emails from parents, health agencies, and teachers, allowing staff to spend more time building relationships.

Dynamics 365 dashboards also show all work in progress. At a glance, staff see what actions they need to take to support the families they are connected to. Managers get a bird’s eye view of their team’s commitments more quickly. Most importantly, a dashboard tracks high-risk situations. Scouller explains, “We use this to make sure concerns are being reviewed, so we stay on top of risk. That means families are safer.”

Tracking impact with data

Children 1st makes an enormous difference in the lives of families across Scotland, but benefits can be hard to quantify. The nonprofit set out to improve how it measures impact.

First, the nonprofit pared down 250 outcomes it used to track, which were all embedded into its legacy database. Through listening groups and conversations with families, leadership selected just seven outcomes it now measures, including safety and the quality of relationships. Staff periodically ask families about these outcomes, which they input into Dynamics 365.

This narrowed focus helps staff collect quantifiable data as well as stories from families. They can then share these stories to show the difference the nonprofit makes in the lives of children. 

“Measuring outcomes clearly, and telling stories better, means that we are able to speak out and influence policy change alongside children and families,” Scouller says. Those stories connect with donors and partners, cementing their support.

Data collected in Dynamics 365 automatically flows into Power BI. “These reports give us really good visibility of trends,” such as how many families are being supported across Scotland, Scouller explains. The up-to-date information enables leadership to make informed decisions, like where to direct resources or work more closely with partner organizations. That way, the nonprofit can meet the needs of families and adjust to changing circumstances, faster.

In addition, Power BI reports make it easier for Children 1st to demonstrate their impact. Staff can pull reports drafted from current data to share with funders, referring agencies, and partners within minutes. Kerv Digital provided training on using the new data model in Power BI so that Children 1st staff can create the reports they need—and demonstrate how their work with families is making a difference.   

“We can now communicate what children and families tell us, what they experience,” Scouller says. “It helps us show why whole-family support is so important. We simply can’t do that if we don’t have the right data.”

Find out more about Children 1st on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.