Round up – Digital Inclusion with BEA
Our digital inclusion project with ‘Bramley Elderly Action’ has come to an end.
Our project with BEA initially started in times of strict COVID restrictions as YBY and BEA identified many of our beneficiaries were digitally isolated and lacked the digital literacy to stay connected in lockdown.
Therefore, with funding from BEA, Sydney our previous placement student (with help from our incredible student volunteers) got the project off the ground in May 2021.
We provided 1-1 digital support to BEAs members at their home and over the phone. Alongside the digital support we offered, we loaned out 15, 4G enabled tablets so older adults could test, perfect and practice their digital skills at home.
As restrictions began to ease, we moved the 1-1 digital focus to a social cafe setting where BEAs members received digital support at Bramley Lawn as a group. Changing the way, we delivered digital support to the members in a group setting allowed peer-to-peer support to flourish which developed the sustainability of our digital inclusion work.
We then received some funding from OP Forum to extend our fortnightly digital inclusion offer to BEA members by running a digital café weekly at Bramley Lawn Club and Community Centre. This benefitted the members significantly as they could access digital support every week without being stuck for 14 days!
In total we supported 33 of BEAs members who are now digital wizards! We have watched them send emails, book doctor appointments for the first time in 2 years, create twitter accounts, online shop, online bank, face time, send texts, stream shows and much much MORE!
We wish we could go on and say how easy and smooth sailing the project has been … but we wouldn’t want to lie to you!
So, here’s a few important points we have learned when trying to provide a digitally inclusive service for older adults:
- Older adults need regular and consistent digital support (ideally weekly).
- Digital inclusion needs city wide support and dedicated funding for projects.
- Older adults lack in confidence and the desire to get online as they tend to be stuck into their traditional methods of practice e.g., using the house phone only. However, the shift of social services moving online e.g., booking a doctor’s appointment has pushed them to get online.
- We had weeks of making huge progress and weeks of what felt like were getting nowhere.
- For seniors to get the most out of being online they need a new(ish) device and a smartphone – which is as a huge barrier for people with low incomes (we received 10 iPhones from 100% Digital which made a huge difference) Thank you!
- It’s quicker and easy to do things for people e.g. we send the email for you BUT in the long run this helps no one.
- Writing things down so older adults can practice digital skills at home if they forget the steps is 100% worth it.
- Student volunteers are a godsend full of digital knowledge and patience.
Even though we will be no longer supporting BEAs digital inclusion service, BEA will still be running a fortnightly digital café at Bramley Community Centre.
As for YBYs digital inclusion work this is only the beginning! We have been funded to offer digital support to the residents at Daisyfield Grange for 8 weeks and we have also received funding to run 4 additional digital cafes across Leeds to train up more seniors as digital champions.