The Care and Support Jargon Buster

2025 · ACF Pro, PHP, AJAX

About This Project

The Care and Support Jargon Buster is a tool built for Think Local Act Personal (TLAP) that provides plain English definitions of over 500 words and phrases used in health and social care. It sits within the Language Hub on TLAP's main website and is used by practitioners, policymakers, people who draw on care and support, and anyone who has ever been confused by a term in a social care context.

The concept has been around since 2013, when the original Jargon Buster won a Plain English Award. But the version that exists today is a complete rebuild. When TLAP moved to their new website, the previous developer had left, and the existing Jargon Buster code wasn't in a state where it could be carried across. I rebuilt the entire system from scratch, keeping the same concept and purpose but rethinking how it worked under the hood and significantly expanding what it could do.

More Than a Glossary

The original Jargon Buster was essentially a list of definitions. The rebuilt version goes further. Each term still has its plain English definition, but many entries now also include deeper content: "The Bigger Picture" context, "Saying It Differently" suggestions for more appropriate language, "How People Feel" reflections from people with lived experience, and in some cases embedded video where people discuss the impact that certain words have on them.

Some terms are flagged as "Use with Care," directing readers towards more appropriate alternatives. The term "bed blocker," for example, doesn't just get defined. It gets challenged, with an explanation of why the label is harmful and what language might be used instead. This was a deliberate editorial decision by the TLAP team, developed through extensive stakeholder input, and the system needed to support that approach technically.

The content expansion meant the data model had to be flexible. Each jargon entry is a custom post type with ACF fields for every content section: short description, full definition, the bigger picture, saying it differently, how people feel, video embeds, related jargon terms (via ACF post object relationships), and custom read-more links. Not every entry uses every field. The templates are built to conditionally display each section only when there's content in it, so a simple one-line definition looks clean and a fully expanded entry with video and reflections doesn't break the layout.

The Archive Page

The main Jargon Buster page displays all 500+ terms in an A-Z accordion format. Each letter of the alphabet gets its own section header, and clicking a term expands it to show the definition, categories, related jargon, and a link through to the full entry page. A category dropdown at the top lets users filter the entire list by topic using AJAX, so the page updates without a full reload.

There are 27 categories covering everything from "Abuse and neglect" and "Assessment" through to "Words that blame" and "Workforce." When a user selects a category, the AJAX handler queries the jargon_buster post type filtered by that taxonomy term, rebuilds the A-Z accordion structure from the results, and returns the HTML. The accordion toggle behaviour is re-initialised after each filter, since the DOM has been replaced.

An alphabetical jump navigation sits at the top of the page, letting users click a letter to scroll directly to that section. This is a small thing, but with 500+ entries it makes a significant difference to usability.

Individual Term Pages

Each jargon term has its own dedicated page with the full content: definition, all the expanded sections (bigger picture, saying it differently, how people feel), embedded video where applicable, and a sidebar showing related jargon terms and the categories it belongs to. The sidebar only displays sections that have content, so if a term has no related jargon or no categories assigned, those sections are hidden entirely rather than showing an empty state.

The individual pages use breadcrumb navigation so users can easily get back to the main Jargon Buster or to a specific category archive. Each category also has its own archive page, pre-filtered to show only the terms within that topic.

Blog Post Integration

One of the more interesting features is the automatic blog post integration. When someone reads a news article or blog post on the TLAP site, the sidebar includes a Jargon Buster section that detects which jargon terms appear in the post content and lists them with their short definitions. The reader doesn't have to leave the article to understand a term. They can expand the accordion in the sidebar, read the definition, and click through to the full entry if they want more detail.

This works by scanning the post content against the jargon_buster post type at render time, matching titles to words in the text, and building the sidebar widget dynamically. It means the Jargon Buster is not just a standalone tool that people have to actively visit. It's woven into the reading experience across the entire site.

The Language Hub

The rebuilt Jargon Buster launched as part of TLAP's new Language Hub in March 2025. The Language Hub is a dedicated section of the site focused on how language is used in care and support, and the Jargon Buster sits at its centre. The hub also includes video content on the hidden messages in social care language, guides for communicating about key topics like mental health and disability, blog posts on language from TLAP staff and associates, and a collection of "Finding the Right Words" resources.

TLAP's announcement of the launch puts it well: the goal was to go beyond just explaining jargon and actively challenge words and phrases that don't sit comfortably with a more human way of thinking about care and support. The technical rebuild gave them the platform to do that.

Impact

The Jargon Buster is one of TLAP's most widely used and recognised tools. It is promoted by multiple local councils across England as a resource for both their staff and the people they support. NHS England recommends it directly on their own website as a resource for understanding health and social care language, listing it alongside their own glossaries on their "Understanding NHS jargon" page. For a tool built on a WordPress custom post type and some PHP, that's a reach that most websites would be proud of.

The Plain English Award the original concept won in 2013 set the standard. The rebuild brought the platform up to match the ambition of the content, and the adoption by councils and NHS England since the relaunch shows that it's working.

Why This Project Matters

The Jargon Buster is one of those projects where the technical work is in service of something genuinely important. Health and social care is full of language that excludes the very people it's supposed to help. Terms like "service user," "challenging behaviour," and "complex needs" can make people feel like cases to be managed rather than human beings with lives. TLAP's mission is to change that, and the Jargon Buster is one of their most visible tools for doing so.

Building it properly meant making sure the editorial team could add, update, and expand entries without touching any code. It meant making sure the system scaled to 500+ terms without becoming slow or hard to navigate. And it meant integrating it deeply enough into the rest of the site that people encounter it naturally, not just when they go looking for it.