Case study · Project delivery

Building healthy habits in 30 days

Southwark CouncilDiscovery and alpha
The client

Southwark Council wanted to understand whether digital support could help residents make healthier lifestyle changes, while addressing inequalities in health and access.

The brief

Run a discovery and alpha project to test whether a digital service could support health and wellbeing in the borough. We needed to understand residents’ needs, particularly among people who are often assumed to be less engaged with digital services, and find out whether residents wanted the council to play a role in this area.

What we made
  • Two focus groups with Southwark residents and five follow-up interviews about health, motivation, local area and phone use
  • Testing for a new public-health brand, using different messages to see what encouraged people to take action
  • Online ideation sessions with national experts, local stakeholders and residents after the UK entered lockdown
  • Two service concepts tested through adverts to find out whether residents wanted them
  • TakeCare Southwark, a 30-day healthy-habits programme linking residents to advice, activities and local services
  • A handover into alpha and beta work that Southwark Council continued
My role

I managed the project from start to finish. This included managing the budget, running stakeholder check-ins, facilitating the in-person research sessions, and managing the extension when Southwark increased the scope of the work.

Outcomes
30-day programmeTakeCare Southwark gave residents practical support for building healthier habits
17 residentsTwo focus groups and five follow-up interviews informed the work
Project extendedSouthwark expanded the scope during delivery
Alpha and betaThe council took the work forward into later phases