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In the News:Technology for Social Impact

Barnardos is pleased to announce that MyStory has been recognised as a cutting-edge technology solution for a non-profit or community project.

Barnardos development partner Readify has won the MAPA 2015 Microsoft Australia Partner Award for Technology for Social Impact for their contributions to developing the MyStory software.

For more than 130 years, Barnardos has been at the forefront of child welfare service provision and has embraced a tradition of innovation in their approach. “Sadly, when children move between foster care placements or change case workers, their history is at risk of being lost in the process. Barnardos believes we can do better,” said Louise Voigt, former CEO, Barnardos Australia.

Barnardos identified a need for a holistic system that tracked a child’s journey through the service system and streamline operations, simplifying the user experience, improving collaboration and enable reporting of accurate information about children in care. Barnardos partnered with Readify in 2012 to support the development of a centralised guided practice case management framework, called MyStory. Readify have provided continuous technical expertise and support to the Barnardos team from the beginning of the project.

In August of 2014 Barnardos launched MyStory with additional features to help capture children and young people’s history, memories and keepsakes in a cloud-based, secure “digital memory box”.

Some of the latest features include:

Worker dashboard for ease of navigation and quick access to client information
Improved search engine to track complex relationships using Neo4j's native graph engine
Client Library to allow case workers to upload children’s photos, videos, assessments, health records, drawings, school certificates and letters to build a digital life story, which can be shared with them , their family members and carers.

“MyStory is not just a data base for collecting information” says Wendi Keenan, Senior Manager, Practice Development Centre, Barnardos Australia. “MyStory is built by practitioners for practitioners alongside a dedicated team of developers and their partner Readify. The guided practice system promotes transparency in case management practices and captures a child’s life story in a single location over time”

Barnardos knows appropriate technology solutions are needed in the not-for-profit sector. MyStory is built on the Microsoft Azure platform and is already available anywhere, anytime to nearly 500 case workers at Barnardos as well as other non government welfare agencies via an affordable Software-as-a-Service model.

Want to see MyStory in action?

Spend more time helping children and families, and less time on administration. Contact the Barnardos Practice Development Centre to arrange a demo to see MyStory in action.