Project Overview
Florida Community Innovation (FCI) is trying to close the information gap for low-resourced Floridians and Floridians in crisis situations with an interactive map called the Florida Community Resource Map (FRM). The last release of the FRM was version (V2). Since V2, FCI has received feedback from non-profit directors and map beneficiaries but still lacks knowledge on how social workers might use the map to support beneficiaries. Since the map includes resources such as food banks, FCI believes it could be helpful for social service providers and their beneficiaries. Our team conducted 1-hour semi-structured interviews with ~5 Florida social workers across central and northwest Florida to learn social workers’ thought processes, common tasks, goals, and pain points. Our goal was to answer the following research questions:
● What are Florida social workers’ day-to-day workflow?
● What are the challenges Florida social workers face in their work?
● What information do Florida social workers need to successfully reach their goals?
● How do Florida social workers find or get access to the information they need?
● How do social workers use tools to communicate with clients and share resources?
● What are the challenges Florida social workers face in their work?
● What information do Florida social workers need to successfully reach their goals?
● How do Florida social workers find or get access to the information they need?
● How do social workers use tools to communicate with clients and share resources?
Method
To understand how social workers accomplish their goals and what pain points they face in their workflow, our team recruited 5 social workers for 1-hour semi-structured interviews through snowball sampling via email. The interviews included questions about Florida social workers' day-to-day tasks, tool usage, information needs, and challenges faced. Asking these questions guided our team to create a journey map that visualizes a scenario that captures Florida social workers’ thoughts, emotions, and actions in their typical work process.
View Interview ProtocolKey Findings
● Florida social workers have multiple strategies for looking for resources
● Florida social workers don't have a formal way to store resources
● Information regarding vendors/organizations is constantly changing, making certain info out-of-date
Journey Map
Action Plan
In addition to the journey map communicating our findings, our team highlighted the following suggestions based on our findings for FCI to help improve the Florida Community Resource Map (FCRM):
● Allow the map to be open-source, let social workers add resources to the map and star resources they find helpful
● FCRM to become a trusted central resource hub for FL social workers through reviews and comments
● Allow Florida social workers to flag inaccurate and out-of-date information
● Allow the map to be open-source, let social workers add resources to the map and star resources they find helpful
● FCRM to become a trusted central resource hub for FL social workers through reviews and comments
● Allow Florida social workers to flag inaccurate and out-of-date information
