Anna Freud
Supporting a charity website in trouble
The Anna Freud Centre, a world-leading mental health charity, is dedicated to providing training, treatment, and research for children’s mental health services. With the surge in demand for their services during the pandemic, they needed to enhance their website to effectively deliver essential content to parents, children, schools, and academics.
The challenge
Following the collapse of their previous agency and facing significant issues with website editing and performance, ClerksWell was engaged to stabilise and support the Anna Freud Centre’s website. The primary challenges included:
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Frequent website crashes during high-traffic campaigns.
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Risky development practices, with all code changes made directly on the live environment.
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Unstable hosting leading to repeated site outages.
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A confusing editing experience for staff, resulting in static content.
The Approach
ClerksWell initiated the project by thoroughly reviewing the Anna Freud Centre’s code and hosting setup to provide immediate support. Key actions included:
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Identifying and addressing code issues affecting website speed.
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Proposing a roadmap to rectify these issues and implementing a new production environment for safer code changes.
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Recommending a transition to Microsoft Azure Infrastructure for a more secure and flexible hosting solution, capable of handling demand peaks seamlessly.
Simultaneously, ClerksWell delivered comprehensive in-person training on page editing and content creation to the Anna Freud Centre’s digital, training, and marketing teams, enabling them to efficiently update website content.
The Impact
The Anna Freud Centre’s website has transformed into a reliable and robust resource for its users. The resolution of crashing issues and the enhanced ability for staff to upload new content have significantly increased online engagement. Educators, parents, and researchers can now confidently access a stable and dependable website for valuable resources.
