Sligo County Council: Freetext SMS response

Challenge

This was a major initiative from the Department of Rural and Community Development that was launched during Covid to link local and national government with the community and voluntary sectors. The Community Call was an unprecedented mobilisation of both state and voluntary resources to combat the effects of Covid-19.

The purpose of the Community Call was to coordinate community activity, direct community assistance to where it was needed, and marshal the volunteering energy of the country. It was overseen and managed locally by Local Authorities, led by the county Chief Executives who led a dedicated community Forum in each county to coordinate and connect the wide range of state and voluntary services and supports that were available.

Opening lines of Communication

Each local authority had a dedicated helpline phone numbers during the Covid health emergency. Sligo County Council asked Púca to provide a Freetext SMS response service to assist at-risk members of the public.

Púca set up the SMS keyword service in a matter of hours so that message could be received and handled by County Council staff as soon as possible.

“This was an important community initiative and we saw SMS as a key channel for inbound enquiries from those in need. Púca were very helpful in setting up the SMS enquiry service at short notice”.

Jimmy O’Brien, Information Systems Project Leader at Sligo County Council