Youth work connected in a new way

How can a digital offer be a valuable aid in youth and social work, which both facilitates the work of employees and improves the quality of the offers?

This question was also posed by the University of Jena and the Internationaler Bund as part of the joint project "GIDA - Gute Interaktionsarbeit digital assistiert". This is where the idea arose to develop an app as part of the project that helps institutions to better structure communication with youth groups, to bring together information in a clear manner, and to promote participation at the same time. TDSoftware has been supporting the project partners since 2022 in the implementation of this app, which will be released in June 2022 under the name "Juniti".

What can Juniti do?

The app is linked to specific social institutions or social services, such as youth centers, youth migration services or district projects. When registering, it offers users the option of registering either as an employee of the institution, a parent or a member (such as children or young people). Through these different user groups, individual rights can be assigned, which, for example, enable private, anonymous chats between social workers and young people.

A key aspect during the conception phase by the GIDA project partners was to use the app to facilitate the everyday work of employees in order to meet the increased requirements for documentation and administration in youth and social welfare. In Juniti, for example, events can be created and managed, and news and information for the respective facilities can be posted. But also support for social media work and help with parental work are among the possibilities of Juniti.

With regard to communication within the app, a privacy-compliant, low-threshold option should be created without wanting to be an alternative to widespread messenger services. Rather, young people can join public chats or write to social workers directly and anonymously.

In order to make Juniti exciting for children and young people, TDSoftware designed numerous gamification functions. For example, kids can create a personal avatar when they sign up, give themselves a funny title, individualize their profile with questions, link their social media accounts, or collect stickers by participating in events.

Project partner from the beginning

After an initial conceptual phase by the GIDA project partners, TDSoftware stepped in to transform initial ideas into concrete features. A comprehensive gamification concept was created, and the app architecture and initial wireframes were developed, which were later implemented in an appealing UI design. The development of the Juniti app is also part of our services here, as is the QA of the individual functions. But TDSoftware also provides support in terms of product marketing. In addition to a new branding including a logo, the team created a new landing page as well as a first app video to make stakeholders already aware of Juniti.

Here you can find more information about Juniti as well as the possibility to sign up for the newsletter: https://juniti.app.