< Back to Our work

A digital toolkit for the National Workforce Skills Development Unit

Posted by and

The National Workforce Skills Development Unit (NWSDU), part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, appointed Curio to build a ‘toolkit’ of resources aimed at those responsible for workforce planning of the mental health support workforce. This toolkit formed part of a wider project to deepen understanding of the career pathways and barriers to progression and development facing those in the mental health support workforce.

The project’s aim was to help the healthcare system better build on the mental health support workforce to meet service requirements, and in the process create a more representative and culturally competent workforce by encouraging attainable career options.

What we did:

  • Map and prioritise content based on user needs 
  • Scope technical requirements
  • Iterative design process following NHS brand guidelines
  • Rapidly build html5 page templates

Starting with a workshop to understand toolkit user needs and content requirements, Curio worked closely with the NWSDU to iteratively develop the content and design of the toolkit, fleshing out a series of storyboards for each section with increasingly detailed content and technical requirements over the course of a month. Adherence to NHS brand and accessibility guidelines was a key part of this process. The platform needed to be flexible, so we built the toolkit as a set of HTML5 page templates that could be presented wherever in a digital estate in the future.

The toolkit provides curated guidance, research and policy for direct managers and those responsible for workforce planning, with an easily navigable design that enables users to quickly access the information most relevant to their needs. The range of resources help build an understanding of the demographics of this workforce and provide practical guidance on induction, retention, training and development to support managers to advocate for this staff group. Resources also support managers to increase access to learning and development and progression opportunities available to the workforce.

Designed as ‘grab and go’ resources, in an easily digestible format, the practical resources encourage conversations around workforce planning and support services, whilst also highlighting the opportunities that exist for the support workforce.

Curio successfully designed and built the toolkit within a month, and it is now with the executive non-departmental public body who funded this project as they prepare to launch it as part of a wider communications campaign to raise the profile of the mental health support workforce.

about the writer

Alex Li

Full Stack Developer

Alex is a Full Stack Developer specialising in implementing course/platform templates, delivering custom interactive tools and develop digital products. With the multiple skills in various areas, she is versed in interpreting people’s ideas and deliver quality materials at a high speed. Alex is experienced in working with learning designers and UI/UX to produce engaging course/platform template which enhance the online student experience. Alex is enthusiastic to apply the latest technology and media development trends in the design of engaging learning experiences. Alex has worked for numerous clients and extensively in Canvas as developer. With a background in multimedia development, Alex understands the nuances of good design and brings this expertise to canvas and web development.Learn more about Alex
Talk to Alex about:
  • Application development
  • Digital media production
  • Learning technologies
  • User experience design
Contact Alex on:

P:

LinkedIn
about the writer

Chloë Threadgold

Senior Consultant

Chloë works across a range of digital projects including user research, content and marketing strategy. She has led and worked on an array of projects across marketing and content strategy, user testing and prototyping, qualitative and quantitative research for international charities, the NHS, corporations, membership associations and education institutions. Chloë joined Curio from a digital agency specialising in the higher education, not-for-profit and membership sectors, where she provided strategic advice on content, brand, UX, analytics, technology and digital marketing. Prior to this, she worked as a qualitative researcher for an agency specialised in connecting brands with women. Clients value her ability to thoroughly interrogate organisational and user needs to come up with creative, evidence-based solutions to their challenges.  Learn more about Chloë
Talk to Chloë about:
  • Application development
  • Data, analytics and learning
  • Learning technologies
  • Marketing and sales
  • Online teaching and learning
  • People and capability
  • Service design
  • Strategy
  • User experience design
Contact Chloë on:

P:

LinkedIn

More of our work

Uplifting the Canvas environment for the Howard Hughes Institute

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a not-for-profit philanthropic research and teaching organisation which aims to develop individuals in the sciences sector to achieve advances in the sciences. Howard Hughes was looking for support to develop their Canvas LMS, to improve the presentation of their brand in the market and ensure that they had the Uplifting the Canvas environment for the Howard Hughes Institute

Re-designing law courses for online learning in collaboration with subject matter experts

As a partner with one of Australasia’s leading universities, we are consistently providing our expert services to create excellent learning experiences for students to gain industry-specific knowledge and practical skills. We collaborated with this institution to combat their problem of insufficient availability of academic and learning design resource to support and translate the common discursive experience of a law course into an asynchronous online course.

An enhanced content experience for students and staff worldwide

The University of Nottingham is a public university with campuses across the UK, China and Malaysia. The University of Nottingham’s Quality Manual contains the University’s policies and regulations across each of its campuses. With a number of content editors across different schools and departments, the structure and contents of the manual had become unwieldly and An enhanced content experience for students and staff worldwide

Creation and delivery of nanoMOOCs hosted in Canvas

The Assessment Research Centre (ARC) is a leading research unit, with a focus on improving assessments, reporting, and credentialing in universities and industry. Through a program of research, commercialisation, teaching and engagement, the Centre aims to solve challenges that face education and training providers. Part of this work involves the creation and delivery of nanoMOOCs, Creation and delivery of nanoMOOCs hosted in Canvas

Kids First Stand Up! program

Kids First is an independent child and family services provider and early education specialist. Their vision is for all children and young people to thrive in resilient, strong and safe families and communities. Stand Up! is a face-to-face, facilitated experience for students over four sessions. The program is so popular it was difficult to further Kids First Stand Up! program

A fully customised and robust Canvas template for Auckland University of Technology

Curio worked closely with the AUT Learning Transformation LAB (altLab) to design a robust, user-friendly Canvas template to roll out during the LMS migration to improve the user experience. 
Together, we developed a detailed brief of requirements for the template and identified common elements that would be used across faculties and departments. The aim of the template was to provide a consistent look and feel across all courses with sufficient flexibility to cater for the wide range of courses offered by AUT. 

A strategy to grow educational offerings into international markets for APA

APA is Australia’s professional physiotherapists’ peak membership body and delivers a large portfolio of education and CPD to physiotherapists, including online products. APA sought to explore the opportunity to expand its education offerings to international physiotherapists to increase revenue to reinvest in member value in Australia. APA engaged Curio to: Assess APA’s unique strengths and A strategy to grow educational offerings into international markets for APA

A user-friendly CMS for The Institute of Positive Education

The Institute of Positive Education is an initiative by Geelong Grammar School aimed at improving student wellbeing. Curio Digital worked with the Institute to co-design the Positive Education Enhanced Curriculum (PEEC) portal. PEEC is a research-based explicit Positive Education curriculum that has been developmentally sequenced from Early Learning (age four) through to Year 12.

A high quality learning in experience in Moodle for London School of Economics

The London School of Economics came to us with the problem that the students on their international programmes were not using the virtual learning environment (VLE) as much as they would have liked. Much of the time the learners would be on the portals provided by local teaching institutions who taught the courses. Feedback was A high quality learning in experience in Moodle for London School of Economics

Expert online tutors for the delivery of Data Science postgraduate programmes

One of the UK’s well-known universities for being a key player in world-leading research activity approached Curio to help them overcome the staff shortages they faced when delivering their master’s programmes in Data Science and AI. Delivering the resource to scale The university saw a rapid increase in student enrolments in both their Data Science Expert online tutors for the delivery of Data Science postgraduate programmes

A new digital ecosystem for a leading accountancy professional body

We worked collaboratively with a leading accountancy membership body to develop the future state vision of their digital learning ecosystem. Their new vision placed members and their personal learning journeys at its centre. The organisation was in the process of shifting to a new direction in professional development and embracing digital technologies to create unique learner experiences. ​

Employability micro-credentials for Australian Technology Network

In 2021, Curio successfully designed and delivered a collaboratively career-focused course comprising three micro-credentials to each of the six institutions. “Designing your Future” commenced as a collaboration with Stanford University and Curio successfully designed and developed an online opportunity available to thousands of students.

Embedding the personalities of educators and an effective social learning model into an online course

Curio partnered with a Group of 8 university, who were moving their hugely successful foundations course in Cyber Security to the online environment. The academic leads had effectively embedded a social learning model where students co-created and shared a “class textbook”, security tips and case studies that built upon content covered in lectures and readings. They sought a partner who could embed the enigmatic personalities of their academic leads and effective social learning model into the new delivery mode to reach their students across the globe.

High-quality micro-credentials for a leading technology university

In 2020, we partnered with a leading technology university on a pilot project to develop a series of micro-credentials and provide expertise on the design and development of their micro-credential ecosystem. The credentials enable the delivery of high quality, stackable postgraduate micro-credentialled content online, each representing 30 hours of learning. They focus on various themes High-quality micro-credentials for a leading technology university

A flexible, market-facing storefront for Phoenix Australia

Phoenix Australia deliver world-leading mental health and trauma training, programs of research and knowledge translation. Demand for Phoenix’s training increased significantly after Australia’s devastating bush fires over the 2020-21 summer season, before increasing again as Covid-19 hit. With all training delivered face to face, Phoenix sought to rapidly move online to meet demand at this critical time across the country.

Custom Canvas template for University of Sydney’s Arrivals Program

The University of Sydney has seen incredible results from the International Arrivals Program since its launch. A dedicated Arrivals Program team, supported by a multitude of stakeholders across the University, Study NSW, NSW Government, and FCM Travel, have worked tirelessly in a continuously changing environment to ensure that students receive the support they require as Custom Canvas template for University of Sydney’s Arrivals Program

A high quality learning experience for education students at Santa Clara University

Santa Clara University’s School of Education was working on a new online version of its Masters Programme in Teaching to be launched in the fall of 2023. This programme is being produced in response to the growing demand for a flexible option for students wishing to study and to receive a teaching credential at the A high quality learning experience for education students at Santa Clara University

An online transformation for RMIT’s MBA programs

RMIT’s College of Business and Law wished to update their offerings in response to whole-of-university changes to blended learning. The College of Business and Law approached Curio with the challenge: “How should we change our MBA to embrace blended learning opportunities?”. 

An enhanced member journey for the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy

Situation The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), is a UK-based membership organisation and standard-setting body for accountants who work in the public sector, accounting firms and other professional bodies that manage public funds, with international reach. Alongside standards and policy, CIPFA offers a range of qualifications, training, events and services to its An enhanced member journey for the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy