Guest Blogger Alert! Money Advice, Digital Inclusion and Pink Boots

The following post was penned by the acers Kim Tewnion - a new member of our digital inclusion team in the far north, and a highly experienced money advice worker. She also has cool boots.

Excited as I am to be working with Irene and the Get IT together project, it has taken me about eight weeks to pull this single guest post together, and so I think the blogosphere is safe from my musings for now. I might have considered keeping a Vlog, if the word wasn’t so ugly, but as this is to be my contribution to the internet for 2013, please excuse the indulgent length of this post.

My involvement in the digital inclusion project is driven by my day job as a Money Adviser. Employed by the Citizens Advice Bureau, I am specifically tasked with empowering people to‘make the most of their money.’ In my role I spend time with clients of all ages and backgrounds, helping them make decisions about their finances – be that where they can cut their budget, highlighting ways of increasing income, talking about issues around borrowing money, investing or pensions. Through these meetings I have seen just the extent to which those who are not online are missing out. You cannot make the most of your money without getting digital.

Yearly trawls around comparison websites for cheaper insurance, breakdown cover or phone packages are not the most exciting aspects of modern life. But, when I see the higher insurance costs -for instance - shouldered by clients who have been unable to use these online tools, it’s clear those 15 minutes were well spent. This is just one example of where the digitally excluded are losing out financially. Cutting shopping costs, reducing the costs of utility bills, the higher return on internet savings accounts and accessing expert advice at the click of a button from websites like the Money Advice Service or Money Saving Expert are just some of the reasons that I am pushing my clients towards getting online.

Unfortunately, it is not just the increased opportunities to cut household bills that brought us into partnership with Get IT together. In the last three months we have seen an increase in the amount of people receiving sanctions on their Jobseekers Allowance payments. In the most part these have been because clients have failed to undertake actions outlined in their job seeking plan. Tasks such as checking named job search websites, or applying for certain positions on the government’s shiny new Universal Jobsmatch.

Some of these clients have only £57 per week to live on. Once they have paid for food, heating, water and the essential travel expenses incurred when attending interviews, there is not enough left for a phone line and broadband package, even if they already own a computer or smartphone (and most don’t.) Thus they must find a friend or family member to help them get online, or use a computer at the local library. For someone who is not familiar with the internet, this is often too little computer time to get them up to the stage where they can complete the specific tasks outlined in their jobseekers agreement. Sanctions occur; up to three years of benefit can be sanctioned for repeated failures.

Compounding this misery, many people who have been sick for a long time are being found ‘fit to work,’ via the controversial Work Capability Assessment that guards access to sickness benefits. These clients have not been in the labour market for years, and many will never even have used a computer, yet if they don’t get up to speed with how to set up an email account, create a digital CV, master web browsers, search engines, menus and hyperlinks, they shall find themselves in complete hardship before long. All this before we even get to the ‘digital by default’ Universal Credit that asks for all claimants to make online claims by October of this year.

The partnership between CAB and Get IT Together is so important, for some of our vulnerable clients it will make the difference between them being able to eat and heat their homes, or them not being able to do so. We are grateful for the resources, funding and support that Get IT together is providing to enable us to start digitally including our clients, and for Irene’s enthusiasm driving this partnership – without which we would be unable to provide the practical help that our clients need. And, although the motivation for many of our client group to get online will be the big threatening stick of absolute poverty, I hope that I can coax them with some carrots too. Like reading the newspaper for free online, looking up long lost school friends on Facebook, getting that hard-to-find item on eBay and Googling your medical symptoms so you can tell your GP exactly what’s wrong with you. (I know that medical professionals especially like the last one.)

Spring Online Week

It's Spring Online Week and Citizens Online's Get IT Together programme are running events all week to help people get online.

One example is our Bristol project who are out at the Cinema encouraging people to try out their ipads this week. 

Spring Online - iPad Surfing in the Cinema! - Bristol

On Thursday the 25th April, Kerry and her Bristol volunteers are hitting the Odeon before the Silver screening of 'Quartet'. They will be in the lobby offering those going to see the film the chance to use an iPad and see some of the useful features they have. http://digitalunite.com/spring-online/events/ipad-surfing-cinema

Spring Online: Northern Ireland

As part of Digital Unite’s Spring Online week, two new six week free fun and informal computer courses will be starting on Tuesday in the Rowan Tree Centre, Pomeroy at 12.30pm and in Clogher Valley Community Centre, Augher at 8pm as part of the BT Connected Communities initiative, in partnership with the UK charity Citizens Online Get IT Together campaign.  BT and Community Digital Champion volunteers will also be helping two classes in Glasgowbury, Draperstown improve their computer and internet skills from 7 – 9.15pm  – maybe they could chat to each other for free using skype- realising yet another benefit to being connected online.  Meanwhile older people in Maghery Community Hall will be springing online with help from members of the local youth group showing them how to use ipads and download useful apps as part of an intergenerational project.

An awareness raising session showing the benefits of being online will take place at an older people’s networking event, run by O4O, in the Crieve Centre, Stewartstown on Wednesday at 11am.

On Thursday a Drop In IT Session for people looking help with their computers eg downloading photos, sending emails etc will take place in Ederney Town Hall, Fermanagh at 11am along with a cuppa and a chat.  Whereas in the evening, the over 50’s will have the opportunity to get online at a beginners IT course in Cavanaleck Leaf Centre, Enniskillen.  Meanwhile in Tyrone, a new computer confidence course targeting older men will be starting at 6pm in the Rowan Tree Centre, Pomeroy, with a Drop In session afterwards at 7.30pm.

Finally, on Friday, older people will be getting online in Crescent Community & Cultural Centre, Caw, with the help of Supporting Communities NI and our own digital Champion volunteers.  Participants include both this year’s and last year’s Pensioner of the Year.  Down the road in the BEAM Social Enterprise Centre, Maydown, the next group of North West graduates will be starting their GAP employability programme, searching for jobs online, uploading CV’s and application forms and carrying out online exams to gain additional qualifications, finding placements and hopefully gaining employment.  Statistics to date are very promising.

Get IT Together Bristol’s co-ordinator in the Cities top 50 Happy list

Get IT Together Bristol’s co-ordinator in the Cities top 50 Happy list

The Times has a Rich List, Bristol has a Happy List and our own digital inclusion champion, Kerry Bradshaw has made that list – voted as one of the 50 people who bring smiles and cheer to their fellow Bristolians every day.

Kerry Bradshaw coordinates the Get IT Together project with Citizens Online and the Bristol City Council to offer free computer clubs for the over 55’s and people with a disability in Bristol.

Award for Achievement and Perseverance - A Case Study from North West Sutherland

On 28 March 2013 local learners gathered for a 'Celebration of Learning and Perseverance'. The event was organised by a group started in October 2012 as a result of a partnership between Get IT Together and Helmsdale and District Community Association, with ten learners  in total have completed thirty weeks of training in use of the Internet and in basic computing skills. The Community Association also sourced a number of recycled laptops through the ReBoot scheme in Forres- which will remain in the community centre for community use: a real asset.

The group was taught by the very able Morag Black, a tutor with substantial experience in adult education and who students clearly adore. One learner stated ‘Morag has been incredibly patient- she works just at our speed and I never felt left behind’.  Morag has had to work extremely hard during her time in Helmsdale- not least when one of her learners arrived in class with a new computer running Windows 8- an operating system 'hot off the press' is always a bit of a challenge, and as this is a major overhaul, it is even more daunting than usual. Unsurprisingly, Morag rose to the occasion.

Before receiving their certificates, students demonstrated their hard work – with fantastic PowerPoint presentations, a recipe book, and a collection of reminiscences of times past. Students have learned a wide range of key skills – from emailing to Skype, and even managed to mail merge and create address labels for Christmas cards.

 The event itself was well attended, and although local Councillor Deirdre Mackay was unable to attend, she stated 'Congratulations to everyone who, as a result of the close partnership between Get IT Together and Helmsdale and District Community Association, are now confidently surfing and navigating their computers!

I'm delighted that this project has met with such success. Over the past few years there has been a steady demand for basic computing classes in Helmsdale.

'With the Internet now a firmly established way of life and a means of paying bills, shopping, connecting with loved ones as well as research, it is critical that everyone who wants to has access to learning how to use it.

'The Community Centre is well kitted out and a great resource for classes like this. In rural areas such as ours it is also important that people have access to as much learning as possible, as close to home as possible. Community Centres and village halls are ideally suited to deliver such a resource.'

Students were clearly pleased with what they have learned over the last six months, and keen to continue and discussed setting up a local computing club to keep up the technology momentum. There will also be, if numbers allow, a new class for absolute beginners supported by Get IT Together.

Welfare reform and digital skills training through Get IT Together Bristol.

The benefits system is changing. From April 2013 a new Universal Credit will be introduced to replace many current benefits, including Housing Benefit and Job Seeker’s Allowance. The Government wants 80% of applications for Universal Credit to be online by 2017.

Francis Maud, Minister for the Cabinet Office said,
“Central Government where possible must become a Digital Organisation.  These days the best service organisations deliver everything online that can be delivered online. This cuts their costs dramatically and allows access to information and services at times and in ways convenient to the users rather than the providers”

The Department for Work and Pensions though has warned that welfare reform could falter without greater digital inclusion. Mike Shakespeare, from DWP, told a  seminar organised by digital skills body, Digital Unite and others, that digital inclusion work is vital for the government’s flagship welfare reform policy.  He said:

“No matter what other problems we encounter with this benefit, and I think we will encounter one or two, if we can’t get people online it will fall at the first hurdle.”
Helen Milner, chief executive of UK online centres reports that 16 million UK adults are not frequent and competent internet users with 51% of those being over 65.  She went on to state that of the 12 million people affected by Universal Credit its estimated that 6 million people don’t have the skill level to currently interact unaided.

The role for organisations like Get IT Together Bristol is to do something to help those 6 million people.

Our learners sign up for a course in Bristol for a variety of reasons… for communicating with friends and family, pursuing hobbies, from curiosity in what’s going on or of what they might be missing, for playing games or writing letters, for emailing the council and so on.

54% of households without internet access stated that motivation was the main reason they haven’t got connected (they felt they didn’t need a connection) after the reasons of skills and equipment.
So far none of our learners have come with the specific reason of wanting to learn how to access benefits online but I foresee a change in this.

Citizens Online’s aim through digital inclusion is to improve lives. Perhaps we will see some new learners sign up to our courses due to a need rather than a want.  I hope that the knowledge and confidence a learner could gain accessing their benefits online will enable them to reap the other extensive benefits being online can have on someone’s life.

The Get IT Together Bristol Project was set up to tackle the issues of digital exclusion and currently runs 9 computer clubs a week in Bristol.  We offer free courses to anybody over the age of 55 and people with disability and their carers. There are many other providers in Bristol that run courses and training for all sectors of the population.

You can sign up for one of our courses by phoning me on  07785 462 568  or emailing kerry.bradshaw@citizensonline.org.uk you can also find our course locations, information about the computer reuse scheme and a list of other providers in Bristol on our website.

Measuring employability

Citizens Online run digital inclusion projects – Get IT Together across the UK. We help individuals, particularly older and disabled people get started with the Internet and we have some robust measures in place to understand the journey learners go on in becoming regular Internet users.

Our latest project in Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) has a slightly different focus. Its aims are still to help disadvantaged people access the Internet, but this time using young volunteers who will gain employability skills by volunteering with the project. Our existing measures can record the progress of the learners, but how do we capture the benefits gained by the young volunteers?

I’ve been looking at a whole range of measures on employability to see which ones we can use to demonstrate the outcomes of our project. It’s really difficult to assess this area. There’s not definition of “employable” and skills sets vary depending on the type of employment you’re looking for. Some schemes measures steps on the way to employment, but these are not consistently defined and can seem slightly artificial.

Our RCT project co-ordinator Ryan is a trained Rickter Scale assessor. A system that uses boards and cards with the user to show the distance travelled during a project. The system costs around £100 and I really liked the idea of a scale of progress. But for me, as a mathematician is too focused on the soft skills that volunteers would gain. How am I to cost the value to society from areas like happiness and relationships? I also think that the system isn’t digital enough. For a digital inclusion charity, we need an online measure to enable the volunteers to demonstrate their IT skills from the start.

The next system I reviewed was Outcome Stars. Recommended by a Close Partner I had high hopes this would cover the areas we needed. I really liked the questions that were asked and the focus on different areas of working life. It’s an online system so ticks another box for me. However, the system is costly and for a charity like ours, that’s an important feature.

We already have a questionnaire based assessment process and a longitudinal study that produce extremely robust, interesting data for us. We’re trying different ways of presenting the data, and I’d like to develop a more interactive tool to query the dataset. However, the underlying data is brilliant and the data we get from phoning learners up after their finished the training provides us with a unique insight into what happens next.  I want to use the strengths of the existing system for our young volunteers. That way, if they found employment or further training in the future, we would be able to find out.

I designed two questionnaires; An entry questionnaire for volunteers starting with the project, and an exit questionnaire for those who’ve completed some volunteering with us. How much volunteering they need to do is still to be decided! We’ll be making them available online so volunteers can immediately demonstrate their Internet capabilities.

The entry form captures demographic information (always needed), their current Internet access, use of devices, and use of the Internet for job-seeking. It then assesses their confidence in a number of key areas (softer skills), their current employment status and what they’d like to get from volunteering. The exit form asks for similar information to measure their progress against these key measures. We’re then planning a phone call 3 or 6 months down the line to see what they’ve done since volunteering. Again, we’d like to show their progress from starting with Get IT Together to the latest progress report. We’ve tried to combine both quantitative and qualitative data to get a comprehensive picture of the benefits our programme offers to young volunteers. This will enable us to demonstrate the value of our project to funders and most importantly ensure that the ideas we think will work, actually do.

If you’ve got any ideas for measuring employability or have found a system that works for you, please share it with us. We’re always looking for new ways to measure outcomes (rather than simply measuring outputs).

I am recovering from shock at the moment.  It usually takes absolutely ages to get anything going with an educational establishment.  Two weeks ago Get Caerphilly Online had a request for volunteer placements for students at Ystrad Mynach College.  I went to visit Rachel Price, the member of staff in question last Thursday and this Thursday I am giving a presentation to over 30 students to prepare them to open up a Digital Friday drop-in session at Ystrad Mynach library after Easter.  This will be our sixth library to be hosting Digital Fridays currently.  The only problem is that the students are only required to do a total of 15 hours volunteering for their course and are likely to disappear during the holidays.  Of course, we will get a new batch in September, but it does mean that I now need another group of volunteers who will cover the sessions during the summer vacation.  With luck I may be able to mobilise some volunteers from BT, my main funders, who support employee volunteering.

More schools work this week.  Back to Lewis School to lead a session on using search engines; visiting Blackwood Comprehensive's Intergen Club launch and planning a historypin event during Adult Learners Week at Risca Comprehensive.  Fortunately, volunteer recruitment is going well at the moment - but I always seem to need more!

Isobel