Socialheads
Messaging built for
relationships that last
For Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs), local authority children's services and third-sector services in Scotland working to a Promise plan. A relationship should not end because a placement, a worker or a service does. This is the messaging that lets it carry on.
What the Promise asks
The Promise came out of the Independent Care Review, published in February 2020, and the Scottish Government has pledged to keep it by 2030. Plan 24-30 is the current plan. Running through all of it is one plain ask: the relationships that matter to a care experienced young person should carry on, whatever changes around them.
In practice, that contact often runs on a personal phone or a WhatsApp thread. When the worker moves on, it goes with them. Sometimes it simply stops. Workers have had no governed way to keep it going, and the corporate parent can neither see it nor show that it happened.
That is the part of the Promise Socialheads is built for. The relationship stays reachable through a move, a change of worker or a change of service, in a space the service owns.
What Socialheads does for that
- A space your service owns. A young person keeps talking to the people who matter to them, across moves and changes of worker, in a place the service holds rather than a worker's handset.
- Workers stay in relationship. On the phone they already carry, inside a boundary the service sets, without giving out a personal number.
- When a worker leaves, the record stays. The conversation belongs to the service, and the next person picks it up knowing what has already been said, so the young person is not starting again. Here is what that looks like, step by step.
- Consent in plain words. The young person is told up front who can see what, and chooses what they share.
How will a young person experience this?
As a message from someone they already know, in an app that looks like the ones they already use. The invitation comes from the service, so the first thing they see is a familiar name rather than a new system.
The conversation is theirs, and it stays theirs. A new phone, a lost SIM or a move across the country changes nothing: they sign in and the same conversation is waiting, with the same person and the whole history. If they do not have a phone this month, a library computer or a friend's browser is enough, and there is no app store account to set up first.
They are told, in plain words, who can see their messages and why, and they can open that screen themselves whenever they want to check. Their messages go to the people they are talking to, and are never sent to an AI company. They can ask for a copy of what they have said.
Young people helped design it, and it shows. See what a young person sees, or read who can see my information, and why.
How do we roll it out without disrupting the service?
In steps, at your pace, and everything you already run keeps running. Most services begin with the staff team alone: a throughcare team, a residential house or a duty rota moves its group conversation off WhatsApp and into a space the service owns. There is no young person in the system at that point, and the team gets used to it doing the work it already does.
When the team is ready, it invites the young people it supports. Workers chat with the people assigned to them. You can start with file sharing and group chats switched off, and turn them on when your own guidance is ready. The titles on screen follow yours, whether that is throughcare worker, key worker or lead professional, and a young person is called what your service calls them.
Every setting is your service's to change, and every change is recorded. New capability never switches itself on. Several services can sit under one organisation, each set up its own way, with one place for the corporate parent to stand behind all of it.
We set it up with you, around the processes you already run. See how a service is set up, and what Core includes, from £3,000 a year.
How it helps your service keep the Promise
Plan 24-30 rests on five foundations: Voice, Family, Care, People and Scaffolding. This is the work Socialheads does under three of them.
Voice
A young person can say what they need, when they need to, to someone who already knows them, and the history of what was said is theirs to see.
Voice in Plan 24-30People
A worker who cares can stay reachable inside a boundary the service sets, rather than choosing between a personal number and losing touch.
People in Plan 24-30Scaffolding
The structure around a young person carries the relationship, so it does not rest on one worker's phone, one placement or one contract.
Scaffolding in Plan 24-30Built for how Scotland works
Care Inspectorate. Every message and action is time stamped as it happens, so how a service keeps in touch is there to show rather than reconstruct. The Care Inspectorate's role in the Promise is set out on its own site.
Corporate parenting. Every Scottish local authority has pledged to keep the Promise and carries corporate parenting duties. The record of contact belongs to the corporate parent, not to whoever happened to hold the phone.
Continuing care and aftercare. Contact is tied to an account, not a phone number or a placement, so it carries on through continuing care, into aftercare and beyond a move.
Ready for an HSCP review. A data protection impact assessment, a data processing agreement and a sub-processor list are ready for whoever is running your review. Your service is the data controller and we act as your processor. See what is in the pack.
If your Promise plan has a line about relationships that last, tell us how your service runs and we will show you how it would work for you.
Working in throughcare and aftercare? See the leaving care page.