AttAIn

Survivors of modern slavery need long-term, autonomous access to support, information, and resources to rebuild their lives effectively. However, with limited state funding, innovative solutions are necessary to provide sustainable support with lasting positive impacts. 

In the UK, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) serves as the support system for potential victims of modern slavery, with 17,004 referrals in 2023 alone. Survivors face complex systems to access essential support for legal matters, mental health, police reporting, and financial assistance. The short-term nature of current support, heavily reliant on support workers and organisations, limits survivors' independence and autonomy. 

A significant issue with the NRM is the abrupt withdrawal of support upon exit, leaving many survivors in precarious situations with unresolved needs like mental health care, immigration assistance, and safe housing. This vulnerability increases the risk of re-trafficking and leaves survivors without clear pathways to further help. 

In 2023, 9,825 conclusive grounds decisions were made, meaning almost 10,000 individuals exited the supportive framework with ongoing needs and no clear access to long-term support. This lack of continuity has a detrimental effect on survivors' mental health, a critical aspect of their recovery and stability. 

The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner's 2022 report 'Survivor's Mental Wellness', highlighted barriers such as time-limited therapy sessions, long waiting lists, and a lack of face-to-face support. Many survivors reported waiting over a year for mental health support during their time in the NRM. 

Organisations supporting survivors face extensive administration researching and connecting individuals to various services, reducing crucial face-to-face time needed to build trust. Each new service requires survivors to repeatedly retell their stories to unfamiliar people, which is traumatic and adds to increased anxiety and stress levels. Also, the traditional research method of qualitative interviews is mainly used in the sector to understand survivors' needs, again this can be intense, intrusive, and traumatic for survivors. 

In March 2024, the Human Trafficking Foundation, commissioned by the UK Home Office, consulted with survivors to identify future support needs. The consensus was clear: preparation for the future and the ability to navigate external support systems are crucial for building confidence and independence. 

We need a solution that ensures survivors have continuous access to support and information at every stage of their journey. This empowerment will enable them to reclaim control over their lives and pave the way to the future they envision. 

AttAIn is an agile and cost-effective mobile app designed to transform long-term survivor support. It centralises support service signposting, information, and resources, along with journaling and goal creation features, providing survivors with "support in your pocket" and easy access to essential information anytime.  

Developed from FiftyEight’s MeL App, AttAIn was redesigned during the 2023 RESTART research project, funded by the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre (MSPEC) and in partnership with the University of Aberystwyth, Trilateral Research, and Causeway. A Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) played a key role in ensuring the app is trauma-informed, accessible, and beneficial for survivors by incorporating their valuable insights. 

The redesign transformed the app into an essential tool for survivors, providing access to crucial support information while enabling them to journal their needs and goals. This feature helps survivors clearly identify the support they require and their future aspirations. By documenting these elements, survivors are empowered to take actionable steps toward meeting their needs and achieving their goals. The app is simple with user-friendly functionality to suit users of all levels of tech literacy.  

The app also increases survivors' agency over their data, choosing who they share it with as they access support and services. AttAIn features a timeline that users can populate with key events and information from their journey. This tool helps users remember important dates and the sequence of events, which can be difficult to recall during stressful situations like interviews. If users choose, they can share this data with professionals such as counsellors, support workers, lawyers, police, and researchers to avoid repeatedly recounting their experiences.  

Signposting: AttAIn is packed with useful information and resources for survivors, by survivors. The signposting areas on the app are; Education, Finance, Finding purpose in life, Housing, Medical Care, Safety, Support, and Trauma-informed services. These areas also reflect the Modern Slavery Core Outcome Set, which was formed predominantly by survivors. Each area contains information on local support services, relevant contact details, website links, and useful resources, empowering survivors to access the support they require autonomously. 

Journalling: AttAIn offers a safe, private space for survivors to journal their thoughts and feelings, providing a healthy way to process emotions. Research shows that people who use journalling have experienced reduction in depression and anxiety symptoms (Horton et al., 2021; Mehra, 2022). 

Need & Goal creation: AttAIn also offers an area to log ‘Needs’ and ‘Goals’, users can categorise their needs or goals under the same headings as the signposting areas and add optional time frames for resolving needs or accomplishing goals. The free text space allows users to frame these in their own words and language, by using the same category headings as the signposting areas, this prompts users to access information that will help them with their needs or goals within the app.

Security: App users may write sensitive, personal information in the app, to mitigate risks of unwanted access by individuals other than the user, the app is protected by a username and password set by the user. Login with 2-factor authentication is required every time the app is opened, to safeguard users from external party access.  

Safeguarding: Users may write about traumatic or triggering events, to safeguard users, the app includes contact details for emotional and mental health support in the Signposting area. Additionally, pop-up messages will remind users of these support lines if they need further assistance while using the app. The app is developed with regular in-put and feedback from survivors, ensuring it remains trauma-informed and empowering rather than triggering.

A thorough safeguarding plan and risk assessment were created before the first phase of app testing, this was reviewed throughout the four-month testing period and will be reviewed as we continue to develop the app. As the solution scales, further risk assessments will be carried out to ensure the safety of users. 

During the initial testing phase, all users were supported by the charity Causeway, which supports survivors of modern slavery. The app included Causeway's LifeLine contact details, and users received monthly well-being calls. As we expand the app, the monthly well-being calls are not sustainable or cost-effective, therefore we will embed support into the app to ensure users have access to the help they need in their context.

Our solution will transform the lives of adult survivors of modern slavery in the UK by empowering them to achieve their goals, access vital resources, and improve their mental health. In 2023, the top nationalities referred to the NRM were UK, Albanian, and Vietnamese, with 76% male and 24% female. We support all survivors, regardless of their stage in recovery, NRM access, conclusive grounds decision, immigration status, or other factors limiting their support entitlement. 

The community of survivors is currently underserved with a lack of long-term support and accessible information and resources. The attAIn app has been tested by a group of 57 survivors from across the UK, with notable impacts: 

Last month I uploaded that I need a job to progress in a career. Once I set it, I set my mind. It is a kind of note in your mind to make you work towards it. And on the app you can look at your progress, it can keep you on track. I feel like I am on track. I got a job. Now I feel like ‘wow’, I can do this. It’s life changing. I feel the app contributed to this. - RESTART participant 22

Starting from the beginning of the process when someone finds you after you have escaped an app could tell you what might happen in the future, what different things you might need at different points. That might be to do with NRM, or NHS, or housing... -RESTART participant 9

It's not good for you to keep on repeating the trauma and everything to people before they can support you. But when it’s just you and your phone no one is going to ask you what happened…In a situation where you feel like you're writing too much and you keep remembering all this stuff. You can stop it. You can pause it. You can have a break. You can come to it whenever you feel like. - RESTART participant 5

AttAIn puts the autonomy back in the hands of those with lived experience of exploitation, it equips them with the necessary resources to achieve their goals and access support for their needs. It has the potential to become a global tool, and while the current development phase targets the UK, it can be adapted in the future to support survivors worldwide, with signposting customised by geographical location. 

The solution also benefits the broader community, as the platform can be utilised by research and support organisations to aggregate and share anonymised high-level data across multiple entities. This capability enables faster and more widespread impact, including at the policy level. For instance, when evaluating the most effective support for survivors in their recovery, the AI and Natural Language Processing features can identify patterns and trends. These insights reveal survivors' needs, challenges, barriers to support, and central pillars for rebuilding their lives.

Central to the development and future success of AttAIn are the ideas, insights and expertise of individuals with lived experience of modern slavery. Since the app was repurposed for survivors in January 2023, a Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) and a larger group of survivors supported by a charity organisation have played a crucial role in shaping its functionality and content. After using AttAIn for four months, these survivors have provided valuable feedback on desired features and changes to enhance the app's usefulness and engagement for the survivor community:

If the app created a channel between the service user and the support worker that might be a better way for the users to ask for help and…would help them better understand our needs.- RESTART participant 1 

The partners involved in the funding and piloting the early stages of the platform have all expressed interest in taking this forward and therefore we would have continued feedback and proximity to the lived experience community as we develop. 

AttAIn is not the first solution FiftyEight has worked on within the context of modern slavery. A core value of FiftyEight is to ensure our workplaces and communities are free from exploitation and that people can access good work. AttAIn forms part of the family of technology solutions in helping to achieve this. 

FiftyEight are the creators of The Just Good Work app, an interactive mobile platform to help individuals make good choices for better work abroad, increasing transparency of the full recruitment & employment experience. The app was developed in 2017 and has over 85,000 users worldwide, across 32 countries and 34 languages. The team continues to successfully deliver and grow this solution, serving both businesses and workers to improve safety, transparency and reduce the risk of labour exploitation. The team is therefore acutely aware of some of the challenges survivors face and are passionate about creating more solutions to improve lives.

AttAIn is in the pilot phase, having undergone four months of testing by a group of 57 survivors. The app formed part of a 12-month research project looking at ethical AI solutions to support survivors of modern slavery and improve policy outcomes in the UK. The app is fully built and uses AI and Natural Language Processing to identify patterns and trends in survivor support, providing insights into their current needs, the obstacles they encounter, and the essential factors for rebuilding their lives.   

For many survivors, the app has had life-changing impacts and helped them to take positive steps forward in building their future:

When I put my goal, it was I want to get a job in care. So every time I pop into the app it’s like a reminder that this is what you said, are you working on that to get where you want to go? So I would use things like Indeed, Total Jobs, Reed and so many things. I was searching and searching until I got an interview. Then I got the job and now I’m working as a full time carer. So the app has really, really helped me. It’s kind of a motivational thing pushing me to do what I wanted to do. So it works, yeah it really works for me. - RESTART participant 20 

It has helped me to share things with my daughter by allowing me to make clear my own thoughts through writing. So now I can talk to her about her needs in a better way than before because I am more clear about it…It has allowed me to explain my needs and goals so I can be understood and understand myself better. - RESTART participant 23

A detailed research report is currently being written and will be published mid-July 2024. Because this is yet to be made public, what we can share from the findings is limited, however, all parties involved in the project would like to continue moving forward with further developments, research and testing, to eventually go to market with a sustainable solution. 

We are applying to the challenge because we want to increase the reach and functionality of AttAIn. We have received valuable insight and feedback directly from the target user group – the survivor community. The financial help from the challenge will enable us to improve the app’s features, usability, and appeal.  

Prototype funding was received from Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre (MSPEC) in 2023 to enable a partnership to be created and modifications to the app to take place. The aim was to demonstrate the potential of a combined AI and app approach. The results of this initial study and pilot were extremely promising – particularly the feedback from survivors, but also the potential positive impacts for survivor support organisations such as Causeway. The pilot was deliberately designed to test the approach, and now further funding is required to further develop the platform to realise this potential, as well as to develop a clear and sustainable business model. For example, this could involve creating a model that enables multiple survivor organisations to utilise the platform depending on the nuance of their support and to aggregate and share anonymised high-level data across multiple organisations which would enable faster and wider scale impact including at a policy level. 

The 6-month support programme with MIT Solve will also help with overcoming marketing challenges. Utilising the expertise of the Solve staff, HPE Foundation and The Anti-Slavery Collective will help us to develop the structure, language and marketing strategy to pitch our solution to customers. 

AttAIn has the potential to change the way survivors support themselves and how organisations and services interact. The centralisation and accessibility of resources and information, combined with tools to improve mental health is a new approach within the sector and we’re excited to continue its development, pioneering innovative ways to rebuild lives.  

Centering the voices of lived experience from the foundation of this solution transforms the landscape. Unlike services designed first and then adjusted based on survivor feedback, our approach integrates their ideas and needs from the start. We continue to prioritise their insights to ensure success. 

Much of the support available to survivors relies heavily on support workers, whilst face-to-face support is extremely valuable, it is short-term and often does not foster independence. AttAIn has the capacity to remove the cliff edge when survivors exit support services, helping them to navigate the complexities of their current needs, whilst also looking to the future and what they would liek to accomplish. The app can be embedded into support organisations, as a tool introduced to survivors when their support begins and that continues with them along their journey, even when other support may come to an end.  

With user consent, AttAIn also has the capability to give organisations access to certain areas of the platform. This feature helps services to better understand the individuals they support and gain real-time insights into their current needs. It also prevents survivors from constantly repeating their experiences as they can log key events in a timeline, which reduces the trauma, stress, and anxiety of having to recount these events.  

On a broader scale, this innovative approach can significantly impact research by enhancing our understanding of survivor needs and priorities in a non-intrusive and non-traumatic way. In addition to interpreting app data, AttAIn features a push notification system that prompts users to respond to specific topics/questions or participate in monitoring and evaluating the app and its content. This method is much less invasive, allowing users to respond at their convenience. 

AttAIn aims to both practically and emotionally improve the lives of survivors of modern slavery and the organisations who support them. It aims to improve access to key resources, information, and support services to give autonomy back to those with lived experience of modern slavery. The platform also aims to transform the speed with which policymakers can understand and respond to survivor needs. Key outcomes include:  

• Enabling survivors to see their own situation in a different light through differentiation between needs and goals, as well as supporting them to identify how to work towards them.  

• Providing a space where they can process and record thoughts and feelings, whenever they wish and gives them space to pause if things are overwhelming, or take time to step back and reflect. 

• Automated analysis of large volumes of potentially triggering data, expediting research aiding the identification of common themes. This spares resources that would otherwise be required for manual data analysis while mitigating the potentially emotional impact associated with the human analyst reading and analysing extensive amounts of text. 

• The use of an app as a consistent resource while navigating different support systems facilitates making a more permanent record of needs and goals, and avoids potentially triggering repetition to different caseworkers and organisations. 

• Beyond facilitating the creation of authentic and multifaceted data, the process of using the app proved to have therapeutic benefits to survivors, particularly in an environment where it can be difficult to access sustained, formal mental health and wellbeing services - “The app can be a therapeutic thing for people. Just going there and writing your thoughts and your goals, it can be a relief for you. Survivors go through a lot of trauma...and I understand better what I need through writing.” 

• The potential for this kind of real-time insight from survivors to feed into adaptation of support to better meet their needs (and to result in faster outcomes, such as a survivor finding employment, or getting medical/financial support) - as well as to feed into faster/more nuanced decisions around policy.  

 The activities to achieve the desired outputs are:  

• Survivors use AttAIn to access information and resources, journal and log goals and needs. 

• Lived Experience Advisory Panel continue to provide feedback and suggest improvements to the platform. 

• Data analysis through NLP, to demonstrate current patterns and trends surrounding survivor support needs.  

• Further development of the app to enhance features and increase usability. 

• Build strategies for financing, marketing, sustainability, and growth. 

Our short-term Key Performance Indicators (KPI) would be: 

• New AttAIn accounts created 

• Monthly active users 

• Needs and goals logged 

• Clicks per signposting area (to see which areas are accessed the most/what information is most prevalent) 

• Patterns and trends in survivor needs and goals

  Our long-term KPIs would be: 

  • Active AttAIn users 
  • Organisations using AttAIn (customers) 
  • Countries with active users 
  • Survivor needs metrics by location and other categories 
  • Real-time (or near real-time) data analysis to support national and international research (direct from survivors) 
  • Improved mental health for survivors (M&E questions sent out via app) 
  • Increased autonomy for survivors (M&E questions sent out via app) 
  • Policy recommendations and changes based on insights 

How we will achieve this (Targets and Indicators) 

Within the first 3-5 months of the second phase, we will set up a Lived Experience Advisory Panel, drawing from RESTART and other Lived Experience experts. Leveraging the insights from the LEAP and RESTART recommendations, we will develop additional functions and features to create an updated version of AttAIn. By month 6, this updated version will be ready for testing with a larger user group.  

We will engage the original supporting charity partner and/or another large national charity working with the NRM, to be part of the second testing phase. Over a 6–8 month period, we aim to onboard up to 200 survivors, integrating the app into their induction process as part of a holistic support approach. We will gather feedback from LEAP, users, and organisations, we will also conduct focus groups and, with the support of the MIT Solve team, develop the business case. By the end of the 12-18 month period (AttAIn app developments and testing), we will have an app  with all the features and functionality desired by survivors, tested by a larger group (up to 200 users). We will then be ready to go to market and approach customers (those who support survivors face-to-face).  

Longer-term go to market strategy: 

Year 1 – 500-1,000 survivor users (three organisations) 

Year 2 – up to 4,000 total users (6 – 7 organisations) 

Year 3 – take AttAIn to the US, 10-15,000 users (UK & US) (a further 5 US organisations) 

We would seek to develop these impact goals as a core focus of the support provided by this programme.  

The platform utilises two primary technologies. Firstly, a flexible app framework that enables quick deployment across Android, IOS and Web. We have invested significant time and resources in developing UI and UX approaches which enable accessibility for low literacy users including full offline and audio capability. We use AI audio transcription to enable a greater range of local dialect adaptation.  

The platform also utilises AI analysis of survivor recorded data, incorporating Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Model (LLM) approaches. The speed at which these models can analyse large data sets, even with contextual subtleties and varied narratives, accelerates research and reduces the emotional burden on human analysts.  

Full-time staff: 5

Part-time staff: 3

FiftyEight began creating the app to support survivors in January 2023 and have been piloting the platform together with partners in the UK through to April 2024. Further to this FiftyEight have been working on apps that help support people at risk of Modern Slavery – such as www.justgood.work - since 2017. 

FiftyEight is diverse, multi-national and multi-generational. Over 50% of the team are female & 40% originate from the global south.  

We actively seek to hire employees in countries with chronically underemployed populations i.e. Uganda and North Macedonia. Based on the ILO definition and data, Uganda, where the majority of our workforce from these populations is hired, has 940,282 workers who are chronically underemployed. This represents a composite labor underutilisation rate of 9% out of Uganda's population of over 45 million.  

Throughout the development of our tech team, we worked with tech incubator Refactory in Uganda. We ensured their developers were given a supportive work environment, on the job training and mentoring in order to improve their skill set and expertise. Since then, we have recruited a team of of 7 tech developers in Uganda on permanent contracts, both through the Refactory programme and elsewhere. We continue to offer one-to-one mentoring and personal development to all our Uganda team, enhanced by a 4-day working week which facilitates an additional paid day set aside for personal development and wellbeing. This has developed their skill sets, competence and marketability for future employment opportunities beyond their time at FiftyEight.  

As a B-Corp, FiftyEight is committed to use all of its resources to further the company’s aims. All revenues and reserves are fully committed to these purposes. FiftyEight’s main priority is good work for all and any available internal funds are currently committed mainly to further development and refinement of our platforms which support workers and individuals in a range of sectors. Income to cover the development and running costs of our free-to-use apps comes from a combination of corporate subscriptions and various public and private sector external funding sources. 

As part of this project, we will develop a comprehensive business model to develop and sustain the platform. This includes working with survivor support organisations, Lived Experience consultants and others - as has been the model from the beginning of developing AttAIn. We expect funding for the platform to be built into funding models for survivor support as it can help reduce costs of analysis of survivor data and also improve survivor outcomes as noted elsewhere in this application. Further funding could also come from Government sources if the platform can help reduce the costs of survivor support.  

FiftyEight has a proven track record of developing platforms to support individuals and organisations to prevent modern slavery and support access to support where needed. Funding which initially came only from friends and family has now been replaced with major contracts from UK corporates plus public sector and private sector contracts from both UK and USA sources. All growth of these platforms has been organic with no external funding.  

With AttAIn, we aim to replicate a similar model, securing funding from corporate, public, and private sector sources in the UK and USA. We believe that a subscription model with organisations who support modern slavery survivors will ensure financial sustainability. Support organisations will facilitate access for their service users and integrate AttAIn into their support services. Further funding from research and government innovation programmes can help drive more advanced innovation in some of the AI elements of the platform.  

As mentioned previously, in 2023 funding was received from the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre, to redesign the app. We worked in partnership with the University of Aberystwyth, Trilateral Research, and Causeway. The outcomes of this research have demonstrated significant benefits for survivors and highlighted the app’s potential to aid support organisations while providing crucial data for research that can inform government policy. In 2025 the UK government is retendering the Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract (MSVCC) and has stated they would like more digital elements incorporated into the support delivery. AttAIn is therefore also positioned very well as a solution that could gain government funding.   

We plan to focus on the UK first and then expand the reach to the US and beyond. The app has excellent potential for scale and growth, to support survivors across the globe.