Tech and Tea a technology five week course for Older People

Status: Ongoing

Evaluated

Salford United Kingdom

Print this page City population: 23390011% over 60Practice started in 2016

Summary

The programme is based on the Gulbenkian report on older people, technology and community: The benefits of technology… is how technology can foster improved social interaction, engaging older people in their communities and promote high quality face-to-face contact. It is a programme of informal digital skills development for residents over the age of 65 years living in Salford, funded by Public Health.
Key outcomes:
• Increase technology skills. 5 week course delivered by the voluntary sector in local community venues, with a paid tutor and volunteer wellbeing champion. Equipment is provided, people are encouraged to bring their own. The programme is delivered informally but uses a work book which the participants can take away with them as a reminder. The sessions include how to perform basic digital skills and internet searches, SKYPE, e-mail etc. Within two years 110 courses have been delivered with 940 people completing a course.
• Reduce Loneliness and isolation. Built into the course is refreshment time and conversation to encourage people to get to know each other. Following the course many participants have reported back that they use their newly learnt skills to skype family and friends. Others become volunteer wellbeing champions.
• Better able to manage long term conditions: The programme includes the opportunity for people to purchase reduced cost equipment. People continue to use the equipment for: information, learning and communication. 55% said they are using technology to help manage their health and wellbeing, such as booking GP appointments via email and one respondent told us she can now order her food shopping online and have it delivered when her osteoporosis was bad and she couldn’t leave the house.

Tech and Tea Evaluation Report

Website: https://www.ageuk.org.uk/salford/our-services1/afa/

Key facts

Main target group: Older people in general

Other target group(s): Older people living alone, older people with mobility challenges

Sector(s): Information and communication

Desired outcome for older people:
Learn, grow and make decisions

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Ageism
Accessibility
Inequities
Technologies

Contact details

Name: Bernadette Elder

Email address: bernadette@inspiringcommunitiestogether.co.uk

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Local authorities

Others involved in the project:

Civil Society Organisation
Older People’s Association
Volunteers

How collaboration worked: Salford Third Sector Consortium are commissioned to deliver Tech and Tea from the Public Health budget, with Inspiring Communities Together delivering the programme and carrying out the project management role. Salford Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) manage the volunteer wellbeing champions working with Inspiring Communities Together as part of the wider Age Friendly work which is funded through the Clinical Commissioning and Salford Council Pooled budget. Age UK Salford support the work by providing access to older people venues. They also lead on the lottery funded Ambition for Ageing work with Inspiring Communities Together and Salford CVS.

Older people’s involvement: Older people were involved in the age-friendly practice at multiple or all stages

Details on older people’s involvement: The Age Friendly work in Salford is developed through a collaborative model with older people involved in co-designed and coproduction of the programme content. They also are active in the delivery of tech and tea as volunteer wellbeing champions.

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: Yes

Was the impact positive or negative:
Positive

Please share with us what you found in detail:
See feedback section above

Feedback:
A Masters of Public Health student from Salford University carried out a small research study to evaluate participants’ experiences of attending the Tech and Tea programme. The study had 3 objectives: • To evaluate if the Tech and Tea programme has increased participants access and use of technology to manage their health and social care needs. • To explore whether participants feel more confident and less anxious using technology after attending the tech and tea programme. • To examine if the Tech and Tea programme has improved social interactions for the participants. A purposive sample was recruited from participants who had attended the Tech and Tea sessions at least 6 months previously, 21 participants took part in the study of which 18 attended a focus group and 3 took part in 1:1 telephone interviews. Initial findings and recommendations were shared in September 2017, with the full report being produced in spring 2018). The study found that attending the course improves social interactions, for example, participants said they made new friends or progressed to becoming volunteers. The evidence suggests that generally service users are more confident and less anxious in using technology after attending the course. The Tech and Tea course has increased participant’s access to the use of technology to improve health and social care needs, an improvement would be to ensure service users feel confident using the Internet to access safe health sites.

Expansion plans:
No current plans for extension, the programme is currently funded until March 2019.

Looking back

Reflections:
The tech and tea delivery model has worked well from both a delivery and participant view however this could be due to: • The relationship ICT has with a number of partners across Salford who can recruit older people and/or provide venues for the course to be run. This would be very time consuming and need to be built into the delivery model for an organisation coming into an area new. • The model of working with paid tutors and volunteer wellbeing champions has added an additional dimension to the project and provided some very good outcomes for both tutors and volunteer, however the resources required to ensure good quality support and co-ordination for the volunteer role should be factored into the programme. • Providing low cost equipment at the end of the course is great however the time taken to set up the system of allocation and then process applications is greater than considered when the programme was developed. A number of digital hub drop ins have been set up to support people to pick up their equipment and when need set up the equipment. We are seeing increasing numbers of people coming to the hubs with more complex technology questions, particularly about staying safe online. This was also highlighted by the University study. Resources to provide this support is not currently built into the project. • Significantly more people are applying for laptops rather than tablets and this places a stress on the budget.

Challenges:
• As this was a new project it has developed over time however the targets were set from the start and needed to be achieved e.g. 500 participants each year. Allowing time for set up should be factored into any new project • The project is in fact three projects in one: delivery of technology skills, small grants allocation, and volunteer programme. This was not considered when the programme was set up and therefore setting up systems and recruitment of staff with the right skills can take some time. Through our delivery model and the skills already available through the voluntary sector organisations involved we have been able to manage this without having to spend time on recruitment of new staff.