New year, new staff
The new year began with two new faces to Team Mind Of My Own; Hunter joined us to lead on customer support and Natalie started as our new sales manager. Both Hunter and Natalie left good jobs in the digital and business sectors in order to work in tech for good. They share Mind Of My Own’s commitment to working to help children and young people.
Express launched
Development on our second app, Express, was completed in January. Organisations immediately started to sign up and adopt it as a tool to help younger children and those with a learning disability to participate in their care.
End of an era
At the end of April Joe Roberson, co-founder of Mind Of My Own and originator of our first app, left his role as co-director and general business manager to pursue other life goals. Joe had been the face of Mind Of My Own for a long time. He was well known by many of our colleagues and friends in both the social care and tech industry.
Kia Ora New Zealand
Early in 2017 Mind Of My Own was contacted from the other side of the world. Oranga Tamariki is the name of the new government department in New Zealand dedicated to the wellbeing of children. After much negotiation late in the evening UK time and early morning in New Zealand, Jill and Yvonne flew over to Auckland at the end of April to start a proof of concept trial of our apps. The initial pilot was a success and will be followed by a more extensive trial lasting into 2018.
Design thinking
More change was afoot when service designer Manjul was offered an ace job elsewhere in the digital world. Manjul had overhauled the Mind Of My Own website, supervised the making of our introductory video and led the development of Express. She taught us all how to use ‘design thinking’ not to mention the correct way to write on a post-it!
Top 100
No sooner had our first year as Nesta/Observer New Radicals come round, it seemed, than we had been recognised again. Public named Mind Of My Own as a top 100 influencer helping to drive change in the public sector through the use of technology. We are proud and grateful to be selected and recognised for all of our awards.
Mind Of My Own grows
As we continued to grow in the first half of the year we needed to take on two new staff. Beatrice joined Hunter in customer support in August having led the successful implementation of Mind Of My Own in the London Borough of Havering. We are currently recruiting a sales lead to join Natalie in September.
OneApp is four years old!
The time has come for our first app to have an overhaul. We have been researching with young people the ways in which the app needs modifying and updating and the development to code in those changes will start in October. By then Mind Of My Own will have been back to New Zealand and will have made our first visit to Australia.
That’s our last 6 month (well, maybe a bit more) Mind Of My Own update. These are exciting times for us all as we continue to raise the profile of young people’s participation in support services, hearing the voice of the child and changing practice as a result.
