PROVIDE CLEAR INFORMATION ABOUT A SERVICE
Expectation cards
Use Expectation Cards to help practitioners quickly understand if your service offer suits the needs of the person/case they are trying to help.
When to use
This is your chance to clearly state up front what your service can and can’t do and what practitioners can do before contacting you.
Impact
-
Empower practitioners to make informed decision
​​
-
Avoid inappropriate referrals to your service
​​
-
Reduce unproductive back and forth between your service and other professionals
​
-
Provide information accessible by stakeholders at any time
​
-
Avoid repeating the same information to different people over and over again
How to use
Be clear and simple.
Group bullet points in clusters. Long lists of bullets are not an easy way to take in information so pull them together under a heading.
Engage the whole team to bring all expertise and experience on the table. You can use collaborative tools like Google Docs to share and contribute to creating the content or you can come together in a quick workshop.
Test the cards with some of the stakeholders before implementing the tool. Feedback will help you to refine contents.
​
Embed the Expectation Cards within your existing channels. In order to be an effective tool, key stakeholders should be able to easily access it at any time they need it. It’s important to give a coherent and consistent message to users.
Review your contents regularly especially when there are changes in thresholds and/or in your offer that stakeholders might not be aware of.
​
Examples
Targeted Early Help is currently using the Expectation Cards together with other patterns to improve their interactions with safeguarding teams in schools.
Related patterns