Digital Champions training visit

Last Wednesday I attended the second half of a training session for Digital Champions at Maryhill Housing Association. Whilst the staff who were in attendance had a variety of roles within the organisation, they were predominantly frontline staff working directly with social housing tenants in one capacity or another.   

After a re-cap of the first session, the training for the afternoon (delivered by the lovely Irene at Mhor Collective) focused on what motivated the Digital Champions to get online themselves before applying this to look at what online services and platforms might be beneficial to their service users. 

Maryhill staff considered the kind of problems that may be experienced by their tenants and how as Digital Champions with knowledge of the benefits of the internet and various digital tools, they might be able to help them overcome these. It was also discussed how they already assisted tenants who were digitally excluded on an ad-hoc basis when the need arose, which was great to hear.  

The Digital Champions training from SCVO, delivered as part of the One Digital programme, is a really useful opportunity for organisations to train their staff to better support clients and colleagues who are digitally excluded.  

Maryhill Housing Association through involvement with the One Digital Senior Leaders Programme and Digital Champions training are embracing digital at every level. Providing a supportive workplace where staff can do digital inclusion work can make a big difference in tackling digital exclusion. There are also significant benefits for the organisations themselves in terms of increasing efficiency and improving service user engagement.  

If your organisation is interested in getting involved in the One Digital programme, or if you would like to find out more please check out the website for the One Digital programme or email info@onedigitaluk.com.  

One Digital is a UK wide partnership which promotes the use of Digital Champions to support people to learn digital skills. For organisations interested in setting up their own digital inclusion project we have developed a free Knowledge Hub of useful information and resources.