Engaging Children and Young People Online - CluedupinHull.com

November 30, 2009 by Ian Cuddy 

Children and young people are notoriously one of the most difficult groups for councils to engage with online.  The history of initiatives aimed at the young generation has seem a long line of well-meaning councils try, and fail, to ‘get down’ with the ‘kids’.  So how do councils engage successfully with this ‘hard to reach’ group and earn their trust?  How can they use the web to reach this audience in a way that isn’t patronising, preachy or terminally embarrassing?  Can councils be cool and fun?

Fortunately, one local authority has some answers.  Leading the way in this field is Hull City Council and its award-winning project, CluedupinHull. com.   Launched 18 months ago, CluedupinHull has proved an outstanding success. Targeting two age groups, 12 and under, and the over 13s, the site provides a trusted online source of information designed for and by children and young people in Hull - and one they actually want to use.

PSFbuzz met up with Debra Coombs, Integrated Content Manager at Hull City Council and her team to talk about CluedupinHull and the secrets of its success.   We discussed how the project was set up, how users are engaged, the issues and challenges involved, as well as what advice the team would offer to other local authorities looking to venture down this route.  See below for a video of our conversation.

Our thanks again to Debra and her colleagues Patrick O’Malley, Martin Brabazon and Gary Hass for their time.

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One Response to “Engaging Children and Young People Online - CluedupinHull.com”

  1. CluedUpInHull share their learning with PSFBuzz @ Plings Blogs on December 1st, 2009 11:02 am

    [...] friends over at Public Sector Forum recently interviewed the team behind CluedUpInHull.com, the youth-focussed website in Hull, one of [...]

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