Communicating Values and Support

1. Communicating Values and Support The Hornsey Trust and Omega Alpha Limited “CommunicatingValues and Support” How does a website help children with disabilities? www.hornseytrust.org.uk

2. Project Outline “The Hornsey Trust, a registered charity, supports children with cerebral palsy, their families and professionals working with them.” • The trust were looking for a way to communicate their services, and offer support, to parents of children with cerebral palsy. • Wanted to raise their profile and increase fund raising. • Decided they needed a website and approached Omega Alpha.

3. What happened next? • Simon met Kath and we learned more about each others organisations. • We discussed what Hornsey Trust wanted. • We discussed how the trust might best present information - what audience, what style. • We discussed what was realistic and what wasn’t. • We got on with it!

4. Omega Alpha’s (Simon’s) input • Problem: Hornsey Trust and Omega Alpha are over 200 miles apart! • Solution: Once initial trust has been built up, email and phone (plus post) work fine. • Omega Alpha sent an outline of how the trust might want to organise their information on the website. • The trust sent sketches, information, photographs (usually electronically). • Omega Alpha sent a preliminary design.

5. Making it happen • We developed a test website which Kath viewed on the net. • We discussed and tweaked the site, helped the Trust go through the process of setting up a new ISP and email. • We also worked with them on domain name registration and set up. • We published the finished site to the web.

7. Commitment Counts! • Kath was committed to make it work. • Simon was committed to make it work.  • Doesn't mean we have to respond to each others email or phone calls every five minutes. • Does mean we respect each others work and communicate in a manner which suits us both.  • “One of the most pleasing aspects of this project was the commitment of the Hornsey Trust to working with us on the project, and maintaining a dialogue, rather than simply accepting a piece of work at the end of the project.”

8. Benefits for the Hornsey Trust • Website helps raise the profile of the the Trust. • Website now acts as a resource for parents of children with cerebral palsy. • Website displays course and training information at the Trust. • Website includes information for potential donors. • Website raises profile of the issues around being a parent of a child with cerebral palsy and offers a signpost to means of support. (Read ‘One Parent’s Story’)

9. What Omega Alpha wanted? • Omega Alpha wanted to provide a resource to a good cause (children's charity), to help that cause promote itself and raise more funds, to develop a better understanding in the voluntary and community sector and to help to bridge the digital divide.

10. More benefits to Omega Alpha • Enjoyable piece of work and a chance to work with new material. • Opportunity to experiment with a new design. • Opportunity to showcase an 'accessible' website. • Raises profile of business in London. • Good opportunity to put something back into something I care about but wouldn't otherwise be able to do. • Fun AND inspiring.

11. Conclusions • Build a relationship with the group for a successful project • Distance working can be effective (OA can support the Trust when it's convenient to us - no real need for meetings and travel) • The Trust saved money (and got the result best suited to them, not to company which sold it) • Good profile for the business • Good opportunity to meet new people • Good to learn something different and do a piece of work which has a bit more real meaning than usual

12. Final thought "Commitment from the voluntary group is the fundamental aspect which helps make a pro bono project successful. The Hornsey Trust have been incredibly professional at all times and they were committed to working with us to make the project a success.“ www.hornseytrust.org.uk Omega Alpha, October 2002