Adoption support Therapeutic support ARCBOX - Digital Life Story and Comms App ARCBOX - Digital Life Story and Communications Management ARC Adoption North East’s passionate and innovative approach has led to the development of ARCBOX - a child-centred, digital platform that houses an interactive life story tool and a communications app to safely facilitate and manage birth family contact. Created by ARC Adoption in partnership with technical company Seven360, ARCBOX was developed to provide a safe, modern and integrated space to document a child’s life story and to support the maintenance of significant relationships online. Below we outline the key elements of ARCBOX in more detail. ARCBOX - digital life story tool Created out of a belief that every child deserves to have easily accessible, high quality, up to date information about their life, from their life history to present day, the team developed the digital life story tool element of ARCBOX. This tool provides children with the opportunity to contribute to and own, a personalised, fun to use, lasting digital record of memories and an organised life timeline. Unlike a traditional life story book, updates within ARCBOX are instant and enable significant people within a child’s life to contribute to their life story in real time, resulting in a truly ‘living’ chronology, rather than a fixed historical document. Children and their family can continue to contribute throughout their lives. The interactive, digital format makes ARCBOX an excellent therapeutic tool for helping children engage with and understand their life history. It is possible to upload approved images, audio, and text which are displayed within an easily accessible timeline, viewed only by the person contributing the information, the life story editor and ultimately, the child. All contributions must be approved by the life story editor (usually the child’s social worker, other professional, or adopter) before they can be viewed by the child. See the diagram further down the page for more information on how this works. ARCBOX - Comms app for safe birth family contact With social media making it increasingly easy for young people to have unvetted contact with birth relatives and bypassing intermediaries and agreed contact arrangements, the team at ARC Adoption realised the need for an online, yet secure tool that could support safe two-way communications between adopted young people and birth relatives. Securing ‘socially motivated tech’ funding from Nominet, we began to expand the functionality of ARCBOX with the addition of an innovative Communications Management Application (comms app) to support a more modern approach to traditional letterbox contact. The ARCBOX messaging service is a simple way to write a note or letter and attach a photo or card (if these things are agreed within the communication plan) and can be sent at the touch of a button. Links can be created via the letterbox team between significant others in a child’s life, such as adult birth relatives and siblings. The child’s editor will always see messages for their approval, prior to them releasing it to the child’s ARCBOX. Should a message not be suitable for the child at that time, it will be held in the system until it is more appropriate. In short, the messaging route will be agreed as one of the following; Whichever option is agreed will work in reverse from child to birth relative, with the route through letterbox being optional. With contact moving into a digital space, ARCBOX is a more safe and secure place for families to make exchanges from their phone, tablet, PC or laptop. Improving ‘letterbox’ for local authorities and other organisations It’s a regrettable but widely accepted fact that current systems used to facilitate contact are difficult to manage due to increasing demand and lack of resource, and moreover, often do not meet the needs of the children. Therefore the ARCBOX comms app will be available to Local Authorities and other related organisations to help them more effectively manage the varying contact scenarios between birth relatives and the care scenarios of children and young people, as further outlined below: The Communications Plan Manager will enable effective management and coordination of all communications The Secure Messaging Module will provide secure, safe communication between children and significant people in their lives, in strict accordance with the communications plan The Post Box Manager will enable recording and monitoring of communications in compliance with the plan The Mobile App will provide easily accessible, managed communications by authorised contributors Improving online safety for young people We are also confident that creating this digital alternative for contact with birth relatives will dramatically improve online safety for young people, as well as provide a personalised environment where significant moments can be captured and stored. This tool will: Enable efficient and audited management of agreed communication plans Provide anonymity to children and young people who are cared for Allow safe, moderated communications between significant, nominated, adults and children Give the child a safe, personalised place to build their own life story, without external judgment Provide a child or young person with a safe outlet to capture and document significant moments in their lives. A positive consequence has been a delay or reduction in the need to access social media as a platform to fulfil this need Demonstrations and Pilot The team are very happy to provide demonstrations of ARCBOX to interested parties. The ARCBOX comms app is currently in pilot phase until the end of 2023, and interested organisations are very welcome to contact us to find out more and get involved. If you are interested in finding out more about ARCBOX please contact us via email or 0191 516 6466 and we'll be happy to tell you more. 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