July 1, 2025
Compass Community Services
Because everyone needs a little help now and then
Since 1964, Compass Community Services has been a premier provider of exceptional, affordable support services to the local community. With therapists in Guelph, Fergus, Minto-Mapleton, and Mount Forest, they are committed to strengthening individual, couple, and family life. In additional to our Workplace Wellness EAP and standard therapy services, Compass Community Services assists those dealing with physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; trauma; and developmental challenges.
The Challenge
Compass Community Services was looking for a website that incorporates a more client-focused orientation including expanding the diversity, equity and inclusion of Compass’s online presence to match their local community, and to ensure the safety of your vulnerable clients. The main goal was to create a modern, accessible website that has information for clients, donors, referring agencies and volunteers. Secondary goals were to reduce staff time spent managing older inaccessible processes, ensure older outdated PDFs weren't floating around and allow clients and referrers to access registration flows in languages of their choosing.
An important aspect of creating the website, was to understand the different services offered by Compass Community Services, and the interactions between those services. One of the frustrations was that clients were not sure if the service they needed was offered, or how to access it, while also having a feeling of safety and knowing that their needs would be taken care of. Following up on that, having intake and registration forms moved to web based over PDFs, that make the processing of inquiries easier was a desired outcome.
It was also important to have a prominent place in the website to welcome donors and volunteers. The changing demographics of Guelph should also be reflected on the website. Part of this was to have an ability to have translation of the content into the many languages that are spoken in Guelph.
The Solution
Northern Village started with a conversation with the entire Compass Community Services team on priorities that focus on understanding how the website could help existing and potential clients, as well as intake and contact staff. We confirmed the goals of the website, to ensure that all aspects were being covered.
We moved the current content over to the new website, reorganizing the information within the new format, and looked at ways that intake for different aspects could be achieved. The FAQs were put in an accordion format to show the different questions, that can be opened up with answers. It was also felt that a general form based questionnaire on the home page, that could navigate a client to the appropriate information or service they are looking for was the best approach.
Diverse website imagery was created to foster a sense of inclusion so everyone felt welcome and it reflected the local community. We also incorporated an embedded Google Translate dropdown with full language list, so that basic translations of the website could be provided in most languages. The website was implemented in a way to ensure it works on all popular browsers, screen sizes and accessibility devices.
