Two boards, two audiences, one platform
The North Somerset Safeguarding Children Board and the North Somerset Safeguarding Adults Board are statutory bodies. They exist to coordinate how local agencies protect children and vulnerable adults, and to publish the guidance those agencies work from.
They became a client in 2008, carried across when Mediatopia was founded in 2010, and stayed until around 2021 — a working relationship of well over a decade, including a complete redesign in 2018.
The two boards share a statutory framework and almost nothing else. Different legislation, different professionals, different documents, different urgency. So rather than forcing both into one site and serving neither properly, an intro page routed visitors to the board they needed, and each ran as its own site behind it.
The 2018 redesign
Ten years after the original build, the platform was completely redesigned — responsive throughout, with the document library restructured and the routing between the two boards made explicit rather than implied.
One page sending visitors to the board they needed, rather than making them work it out.
Built to work on whatever a professional or a parent happened to be holding.
The document library was the site
What a safeguarding board actually publishes is guidance. Neglect protocols. Multi-agency procedures. Modern slavery resources. Materials on bullying, children’s mental health and CAMHS referrals. Child death overview panel reports. Annual reports and serious case reviews.
Those documents are the reason a social worker, a teacher or a parent visits the site at all, usually because something specific has happened and they need to know what to do about it. The design job is making sure they find the right document, and that the document they find is the current one.
That is a content management problem more than a design one, and it is where most public sector sites come apart. Documents get uploaded ad hoc, superseded versions stay online alongside current ones, and the site slowly becomes something professionals stop trusting.
Accessibility is not optional here
Public sector bodies are required to meet WCAG accessibility standards, but the regulatory case is the weaker argument. The stronger one is who uses a safeguarding website.
Vulnerable adults. Older people. People in distress. People using screen readers, or magnification, or a phone with one hand while something difficult is happening. If the contrast is poor, the type is small or the navigation only works with a mouse, the site fails exactly the people it exists for.
The same principles apply to everything we build, but they are non-negotiable in this sector. Proper contrast, readable type, keyboard navigation, plain language and a structure that makes sense to somebody who has never used the site before and is not in a calm frame of mind.
If you work for a local authority, safeguarding board or public body and the website is not serving the people it should, that is exactly the work. The Guinness Care case study is a comparable project in the care sector.
Project development work carried out
Two Sites, One Entry Point
An intro page routing visitors to the children’s or adults’ board, so each audience got a site built for them rather than a compromise between the two.
Statutory Document Library
Protocols, procedures, guidance, annual reports and training materials organised so professionals could find the right document and know it was current.
Redesigned and Maintained
Built in 2008, carried into Mediatopia in 2010 and completely redesigned in 2018 — maintained continuously across more than a decade.
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