Essentially online
Birmingham City Council has awarded BCM’s Care Centre a certificate for its work in digital inclusion, helping people experiencing hardship access essential online services.
.jpg)
It is 'in recognition of contributions to our digital community working together' as Care Centre clients experiencing homelessness and severe hardship are supported to access essential online services such as benefits, housing and healthcare. BCM is part of the city council’s pilot scheme to provide Wi-Fi access and refurbished devices, alongside practical support, to help clients develop greater digital independence.
Care Centre Manager, Alec Petson, said, ‘We will be provided with 3 laptops and 2 data boxes for WiFi set-up in the main room. Clients will have access to these to sort out benefits, housing, create email accounts, search for jobs, do online courses, sort out IDs and other documents, and more. They will be guided and helped by staff and volunteers. At least 3 members of staff will take a digital skills training course, enabling them to give training to clients. The digital inclusion project will also provide corporate groups, experienced in digital skills, to come in during the year to give advice and training. In addition we will be given 2 high spec phones for staff to use to contact clients and other agencies on a client’s behalf.
This project will be very helpful for those we serve as most do not have access to digital devices or data, and many would not know how to use the devices if they did have them. The more access and training they can have, the less reliant on services they will be, and we believe this will help people get back into better living situations and, ultimately, back into work.’
The council’s Project Lead, Sally Roche, said, ‘I’ve really enjoyed working with Alec, who has so much enthusiasm to take the pilot forward. Connectivity is where we start, and we’ve had some great ideas for future sessions at the Care Centre. Once we’ve seen how the project will work there, we are looking to roll it out in other BCM departments.’
Thank you to Sally and the council, doing a lot of good work in the city. We are delighted to be a part of this valuable project.
