HelpFirst Blog

Mar 28, 2025

Did That Actually Happen? When AI Makes Things Up, And What We’re Doing About It

Exploring the potential for LLMs in critical case management

Harriet Owen

Mar 5, 2025

"I Need to Trust This Record in Court": How We're Designing AI for Social Workers

What user interface best supports an AI-powered chronology drafting tool?

Andy Bell

Feb 26, 2025

How AI could help Childline counsellors spend more time talking to children and young people

How to help dedicated staff and volunteers spend more time supporting service users, and less time on admin?

Andy Bell

Feb 17, 2025

Why We Need to Stop Talking About “What AI Will Do”

Technological advances have sparked new debates about AI replacing human professionals. Reporting on this often misrepresents AI - what it is, and how people interact with it in real life.

Angela Bradbury

Jan 9, 2025

Chronologies

Help us develop an AI-powered chronology drafting tool

Andy Bell

Dec 13, 2024

Winner: Digital Public Services Award

Delighted to receive this award on behalf of the team at Scottish Parliament

Andy Bell

Dec 6, 2024

If you had unlimited interns, what would they do?

Gods, Interns and Cogs in casework

Andy Bell

The lovely HelpFirst team whose gratitude you’ll have forever

Dec 6, 2024

HelpFirst needs you: tell us about your thoughts on chronologies!

All we want for Christmas is a user research interview

Angela Bradbury

Dec 4, 2024

From Overwhelmed to Empowered: AI's Real-World Impact on Citizens Advice Scotland

A behind-the-scenes look at the challenges of integrating LLMs into a high-stakes environment serving vulnerable citizens

Andy Bell

Nov 11, 2024

Why that off-the-shelf summarisation tool isn't working well for your case notes

Are you hoping to support your caseworkers with AI-generated case note summaries? Have you been trialling an off-the-shelf tool, and feeling disappointed with the results? Read on to learn why, and what to do about it.

Angela Bradbury

Nov 8, 2024

AI Action Plan workshop

Figure out where AI will move the needle for you and your team

Andy Bell

Sep 16, 2024

User-centred evaluation

Evals are hard. Get closer to the users.

Andy Bell

Aug 12, 2024

How to win a CivTech 10 challenge

Seminar 21st Aug: learn how to win over £1m and deliver tech for good at scale

Andy Bell

Perth Citizens Advice website with chatbot pop up

Aug 7, 2024

Artificial Inquisitiveness - How CAS use AI to ask questions, rather than provide answers

Catch up on our event on 7th August, exploring an innovative approach to AI in client services

Lucy King

Jun 25, 2024

Unbundling Complex Issues: AI's Role in Enhancing Client-Advisor Interactions

Citizens Advice Scotland supports clients with a huge range of issues. We're investigating how LLMs can support CAS's dedicated advisors and meet the diverse needs of their clients.

Lucy King

May 1, 2024

How to navigate the new, AI-enabled world of CRM systems

Your caseworkers think the IT system needs upgrading. Your funders are asking you to do more, with less. Everyone is talking about AI - but would it be good or bad for your organisation? We don’t have all the answers, but hopefully this is a start.

Angela Bradbury

Apr 17, 2024

The worst day of my life; a seed of HelpFirst’s mission

My daughter’s critical needs got missed. HelpFirst is building technology to stop similar things happening again.

Andy Bell

Mar 19, 2024

How AI can support neurodivergent caseworkers

We’re building technology to make all caseworkers' lives easier - potentially with an outsized uplift for neurodivergent caseworkers

Angela Bradbury

Mar 12, 2024

Mission, Vision & Values (v0.1)

Unveiling what we care about

Andy Bell

An illustration of a town square with people walking around it.

Mar 8, 2024

Designing for Citizen Needs*

*That don't require more funding or structural improvements to public services. Sadly, that's out of scope.

Lucy King

Mar 6, 2024

Large Language Models plus Citizens Advice Scotland. A match made in heaven?

Co-designing new uses for LLMs in advice-giving contexts

Andy Bell

Feb 23, 2024

#HelplinesAwarenessDay

Helplines are an essential part of modern society. Let's take a moment to appreciate the people who make them possible.

Andy Bell

Feb 12, 2024

Pivoting to casework

Casework versus transactional customer relationships. Accelerating our customer development.

Andy Bell

Feb 11, 2024

Reporting beats prioritisation: learnings from January

Are the machines learning? Are they learning anything useful?

Andy Bell

Dec 4, 2023

How we saved £400k/year for Citizens Advice Scotland

3 lessons from a successful AI implementation

Andy Bell

Nov 23, 2023

Creating a Multi-Sector PSR

Ruminations on improving the Priority Service Register

Andy Bell

Nov 22, 2023

HelpFirst in 3 minutes

A quick tour of key HelpFirst functionality

Andy Bell

Nov 15, 2023

Reflections from Public Sector Innovation Conference

Inspiring examples from an excellent conference

Andy Bell

Nov 13, 2023

Introducing the Playground

See how HelpFirst lets you prioritise your most vulnerable clients

Andy Bell

Nov 6, 2023

Mapping the PSR

A visual exploration into some irregularities and oddities of Priority Services Register application forms

Harriet Owen

Oct 31, 2023

How AI can identify and prioritise vulnerable customers

The Citizens Advice Scotland view on the benefits of HelpFirst

Andy Bell

Oct 12, 2023

Four Takeaways from 'Deciphering Consumer Vulnerability'

What does credit reference agency data tell us about vulnerability?

Andy Bell

Oct 3, 2023

3 Ways that AI Could Aid in Managing Vulnerable Clients

Advances in AI mean that is now possible to scan case notes and get a good sense of what the case is about. What are the best ways to surface these insights to caseworkers and their managers?

Andy Bell