Work

Using e-learning to build a stroke support community

How do you unite survivors, carers and medical professionals in their mission to educate on stroke?

SAFE is a non-profit organisation that works with a range of stroke patient groups across Europe to advocate for better prevention strategies, diagnosis, treatment and aftercare, at a local and national level.

We developed a digital e-Learning platform for them to help people affected by stroke to set up their own Stroke Support Organisations (SSOs).

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The tool had to be designed for end-users by end-users. To find out what they wanted to learn and in what format, we conducted a series of interviews with stroke support groups on Facebook.

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This revealed that, for many, English was not their first language and, also, that the content needed to be simple, as some of the post-stroke users had several barriers to learning, including problems with memory, concentration and coordination.

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Working in collaboration with SAFE and an Online Disability and Accessibility Consultant, we began working on the Stroke Support Organisation Faculty Tool (SSOFT), the first-ever online stroke learning platform.

We enlisted the help of stroke experts, Sarah Belson and Joe Korner, who drafted the initial technical and medical content. Then our in-house copywriters simplified the language and ensured the flow of content was easy to digest.

Information was planned out over six modules and was regularly peer reviewed by members of the SAFE committee to ensure it was hitting the brief for end-users.

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As well as making the content easy to understand, the SSOFT tool is very simple and intuitive to use, with user-friendly text and interactive illustrations created by our designers.

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The modules cover everything from initial setup of a Stroke Support Organisation to gathering evidence, interacting with the media and planning an advocacy campaign.

Activities at the end of each module repeat the content and help the user to test their knowledge, while a workbook is available for additional information.

The tool is being used successfully across Europe to set up more Stroke Support Organisations and ensure people get the help they deserve. If you’d like to find out more about this e-learning tool and how we could implement something similar for your brand, please get in touch.

Read our ‘top 5 considerations for online learning’ to see what we’ve learnt so far.

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About The Foundry

The Foundry is a strategic communications agency, based in Manchester, delivering fully-integrated marketing campaigns for B2B, B2C, public sector and healthcare clients. Healthcare marketing services include qualitative and quantitative research, branding and packaging design, social media campaigns, educational websites, CPD programmes, online learning tools, in-clinic training materials, posters and patient literature.

For more information, call 0161 926 8444.

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About The Foundry

The Foundry is a strategic communications agency, based in Manchester, delivering fully-integrated marketing campaigns for B2B, B2C, public sector and healthcare clients. Compliance marketing services include qualitative and quantitative research, branding and packaging design, social media campaigns, educational websites, CPD programmes, online learning tools, in-clinic training materials, posters and patient literature.

For more information, please call 0161 926 8444.