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A Little About Me care profiles
Launching Thursday 28th August
A Little About Me is a first-of-its-kind digital tool that gives children a voice in their own care. Engaging quizzes capture each child’s needs, preferences, and potential triggers, creating a personalised care profile for clinicians ahead of a hospital visit. These actionable insights help staff make reasonable adjustments to deliver care more efficiently and effectively.
Now a core feature of the Little Journey app, it will help UK hospitals advance strategic goals in efficiency, equity, and innovation in paediatric care.
Developed in partnership with
Little Journey was awarded funding from LEGO's Play for All (PfA) Accelerator grant.
Co-designed with
430+
Children, caregivers, and clinicians - including over 100 neurodivergent children.
Independently validated by
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Tested to meet WCAG AA guidelines and to suit the needs of neurodivergent children in a usability and acceptability study.
How does A Little About Me work?
We’re dedicated to building inclusive products
We’ve been rebuilding our features from the ground up, both in design and code. Collaborating with industry-leading experts, we've focused on creating experiences that are usable, accessible, and enjoyable for everyone, including people with disabilities:
Vision
Supporting users who are blind, partially sighted, or colour blind.
Hearing
Accommodating those who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Mobility
Ensuring ease of use for individuals with impaired motor skills.
Neurodiversity
Providing accessible experiences for people with dyslexia, autism, or learning difficulties.
Step 1
Engaging quizzes
Families complete quizzes within the Little Journey app. Capturing preferences, communication needs, and potential triggers
Outcome: Families feel prepared and understood before arrival.
Step 2
Personalised care profiles
A clear, concise report is automatically created using a standardised format that any clinician can quickly review.
Outcome: Clinicians gain actionable insights with no extra admin.
Step 3
Action the insights
Care profiles staff tailor their approach, make early referrals e.g. to health play specialists, and build trust from the first interaction.
Outcome: Reduced anxiety, more efficient care delivery.
Why this matters for families, healthcare staff, and hospitals
Up to 80% of all children
experience healthcare-related anxiety or distress. Negatively affecting their long-term wellbeing, procedural outcomes, and the overall efficiency of care delivery.
Neurodivergent children are 2x more likely to experience procedural anxiety and 5x more likely to require repeat hospital visits than their neurotypical peers.
Christina Witcomb, Head of Children’s Wellbeing at The Lego Foundation, discussed the value of A Little About Me on the BBC
A Little About Me is the first patient-led data collection and care personalisation tool in paediatrics.
Giving families a voice in their care helps hospitals meet operational and strategic objectives by reducing repeat procedures and appointment overruns, while improving patient experience and compliance with national healthcare priorities like GIRFT.
As a human-centred designer by background, I believe accessibility is essential to our mission. These product improvements allow us to provide more meaningful support, tailored to the unique needs of each user. I’m proud of the team and the incredible partnerships we've built with leading organisations, like SBRI, Autistica and The LEGO Foundation, whose support and funding have been crucial in making this vision a reality. Together, we’re working hard to create a better healthcare experience for ALL children.
79% of caregivers strongly agreed that the Little Journey app was easy to use—our goal is to make that 100%.
Pilot study at Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital
[N = 24]
Learn more about the development of A Little About Me
Voices Unheard: Parents of Autistic Children in Paediatric care
This white paper explores the often-overlooked experiences of parents navigating healthcare systems with their autistic children. Authored by clinical psychologists Dr. Megan Hofmann and Dr. Vicky Queralt, the paper concludes with actionable recommendations tailored for healthcare settings, staff, and families — all aimed at fostering more compassionate, effective, and inclusive care.
Accessing healthcare as a neurodiverse child: Insights from 158 families
For many families, especially those with neurodivergent children, a hospital visit can be filled with uncertainty, anxiety, and invisible barriers. We wanted to understand this experience more deeply, so we surveyed caregivers across the UK to explore the differing needs of neurodiverse and neurotypical children within hospital settings. Read the full stats.
.webp "A child has a phone placed on the table, and is playing with the Little Journey app.")
FAQs
Is A Little About Me suitable for children with learning disabilities?
The A Little About Me quizzes have been validated for use with neurodivergent children, however all our features have been designed with accessibility and inclusivity at their core. We are confident that A Little About Me can bring personalisation and benefit to all families.
We would welcome opportunities for further research and validation. If this is something you’d be interested in collaborating on, contact hello@littlejourney.health.
How is A Little About Me different to a health passport?
A Little About Me is the first patient-led data collection and care personalisation tool in paediatrics. Existing PREMs, PROMs, and Health Passports are limited and intended to be completed entirely by either caregivers or clinical staff.
Existing tools are often paper-based, complex and outdated:
- 33/39 PREMs commonly used in paediatric healthcare settings have not been developed for use by children. This limits both the relevance and usability of such measures to children, and the clinical/healthcare utility of their outputs.
- 60% of all PREMs delivered in paediatric settings are deployed using a pen and paper significantly impacting the ease of data collection, processing and management.
Most existing methods rely on caregiver or clinician recall, often at the point of care. A Little About Me includes the child’s own voice and gives staff actionable insights before the procedure - reducing on-the-day stress and delays.
Does the language around neurodivergence comply with best practice?
Yes, the content in A Little About Me has been co-designed with neurodivergent families, we have adhered to and adopted Autistica’s language guidelines where appropriate.
How do you manage data processing and security?
Little Journey does not store or transfer any information provided by children or caregivers in the A Little About Me quizzes. All data is stored locally on a user’s device. A Little About Me care profile reports are generated as PDFs and can be downloaded or manually shared by the user.
Do I need to update the app?
The app will keep working with the previous version until updated. The update may occur automatically, or when you manually choose to update depending on your device settings. You will not have access to the new accessibility features until the app updates.
Why do some parts look the same as they did before the update?
We are making accessibility improvements in an incremental way, which allows us to release improvements as soon as they’re ready. We will prioritise games, relaxation activities and onboarding next.
Are the accessibility features available for all pathways?
The new accessibility features are available in all our paediatric care pathways. This includes surgery, MRI, blood tests, CT, endoscopy and mental health.
Unfortunately, the features are not yet available for our AICU (adult intensive care) or NICU (neonatal intensive care) pathways. This is due to the differences in how these pathways have been created to meet the requirements for adult users.
I don't need accessibility features. Will this update affect my experience?
No, the update enhances accessibility without affecting the core functionality of the app. If you don’t need these features, your experience will remain the same.
Will these accessibility changes slow down the app?
No, the accessibility improvements should not impact the app’s performance. The app should run just as efficiently as before
What if users experience issues with the new accessibility features?
If you encounter any problems or have feedback about the accessibility features, please contact our support team at hello@littlejourney.health. We are committed to continually improving the app’s accessibility and welcome your input.
Will there be more accessibility improvements in the future?
Yes, we are committed to making the app as accessible as possible. We’ll continue listening to user feedback and improving accessibility in future updates.
References: 1 Disability, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). 2 Unpublished data from a pilot study with Joe Dimaggio Children’s Hospital in 2023. [n=24]. 3 Evaluation report of the Little Journey mobile application (healthinnovationeast.co.uk).