News tagged 'building 3rd sector capacity'

Success stories

Advice point volunteers help elderly gentleman re-tune his TV

An elderly gentleman who was very hard of hearing came to the advice point run by lead organisation COVER in Thetford. He knew quite a lot about switchover from the TV adverts and door drop leaflets he had received. However, he was struggling to re-tune his TV. He had tried to call the DUK advice line, but because of his hearing difficulty he could not hear the instructions that the adviser was giving him.

He saw an advert in the local paper for the switchover advice point so decided to go down there for some help. The volunteers demonstrated to the gentleman how to re-tune, taking him through the process step by step so he could see what he needed to do. The gentleman knew the model of his TV, so the volunteers looked up the exact instructions for re-tuning his TV and wrote them down for him to take home. The gentleman was really pleased that the volunteers had been there to help him.

Communities Programme volunteer engages trusted people to spread the word ‘

Joan’ is a volunteer for Suffolk ACRE who helped to engage community supporters through the Communities Programme. Joan was taking a trip to the north of the county and took a ‘scenic route’ visiting rural villages along the way. Joan visited many villages, stopping at two drop-in centres, three church groups, a vicar’s, and a disability day centre. She spoke to people she knew about the Switchover Help Scheme and asked them if they knew of anyone in their community who might need support to access the help they were eligible for – for example, because they were isolated or found it difficult to fill in forms.

Two weeks later, Joan re-visited all the villages and found that the people she had spoken to had in turn spoken to people they knew who were eligible for the scheme. The leader of the three church groups said that he’d spoken to a number of people who were eligible, and that one of the congregation had already phoned him to say that the Help Scheme were “coming to sort her TV out”!

Joan was really pleased she had been able to help.

The final transmitter in the Anglia TV region, Tacolneston, switched to digital this month.

During the run-up to the switchover, we worked with VCS organisations in the region who have strong local networks to deliver a range of outreach activities and events to help local residents prepare for the switchover. Together they put in a fantastic effort, delivering some great results for Digital UK and the Switchover Help Scheme and ensuring target groups knew what they needed to do to continue watching TV after the switchover.

Lead organisation COVER ran four advice points on the Tacolneston switchover days, where friendly staff and volunteers supported over 330 people. During the run-up to the switchover, COVER and their partner organisations overachieved on all of their targets, delivering 101% of their end user events and 118% of their one to ones.

Photo: A gentleman receives support from an advice point volunteer

Through the Communities Programme, trained volunteers from Norfolk Rural Community Council (Norfolk RCC) and Suffolk ACRE engaged over 1,200 ‘community supporters’ – people who are known and trusted in their local communities by those the outreach programme aims to reach. These community supporters supported over 100 people to access the Help Scheme.

CSV, which delivered the targeted awareness programme in over 50 Tacolneston postcode areas identified as having a lower response rate to the Help Scheme mailings, engaged volunteers who used their local knowledge and contacts to ensure Help Scheme literature and posters were displayed in 120 community venues (such as medical centres, libraries and churches), and 114 commercial venues (such as post offices, cafes and hairdressers) and encouraged local venue and business owners to spread the word about the scheme.

WRVS made sure that Help Scheme eligible people who requested a home visit received face-to-face support from a friendly volunteer to help them complete their packs, be there with them as a chaperone when the engineer calls, and help them use their new equipment.

Photo: Age UK Norfolk cascade the messages about switchover to their clients.

A big thank you to COVER, Norfolk RCC, Suffolk ACRE, CSV, WRVS and all of the volunteers who gave their time to help. The outreach work you have delivered has ensured that over 6,000 people in the Tacolneston area have received the support they needed to switch to digital – a fantastic result.

The Home Visit Service is provided by WRVS volunteers on behalf of the Switchover Help Scheme. This service offers support to eligible people in their homes to discuss their options under the Help Scheme, assist them to use their new equipment, or be there as a chaperone when the engineer calls.

Nicola Winson is a Local Service Manager at the WRVS and co-ordinates the service in the Meridian TV region. She has worked for WRVS for five years, starting off in the Meals on Wheels service, and first got involved in the Home Visit service during the run-up to switchover in the Central TV region.

Nicola says: “WRVS’s role involves recruiting and training volunteers and co-ordinating the visits, liaising with Digital Outreach and the Help Scheme contact centre.

“We train the volunteers jointly with Digital Outreach  – we cover what WRVS expects of them, health and safety issues and so on, and Digital Outreach gives them an insight into digital switchover. They don’t need to know all the technical information that the engineers do, but they need to know why it’s happening and what people need to do. An important aspect of the service is acting as a good neighbour and making people feel comfortable. I’ve trained about 200 people so far who are keen to volunteer. We’ve met some wonderful people - they’re giving so much to help others and I hope when I get that age, someone will come out and see me!”

People may need a home visit for a variety of reasons: “It could be that they don’t have family, or don’t hear very well – for example we had one lady who had tried to call the Help Scheme, but couldn’t hear what the person on the other end of the phone was saying,” says Nicola. “Some people have memory problems. A lot of older people just don’t like dealing with people over the phone. Our volunteers are comfortable working with people with these sorts of problems and are used to hearing “Who are you?” when they turn up at the door of someone they’ve arranged a visit with! But people soon remember the smiley face coming to the door.”

A home visit service is arranged when someone who is eligible for the Help Scheme gets in touch with the contact centre and requests one. The contact centre then contacts Nicola, who arranges a trained and trusted volunteer to provide the support.

Nicola says that people are happy when they know it’s a WRVS volunteer who will come and see them. “We have a big profile – older people and vulnerable people trust WRVS – they know who we are. It’s not just about providing the service, but about being a good neighbour and giving ongoing support.

“Sometimes, people have asked us direct for the help because they are too worried to ring the call centre, or a friend has told them about it. One lady rang and asked for a home visit, and was impressed with the lovely volunteer and told her neighbour, who thought “I want that!” and rang us direct.  When this happens, I ring the Help Scheme on their behalf and ask them to ring the person and confirm this with them.

The volunteers have built people’s confidence about switchover and the Help Scheme. “About 90% of our visits so far have been for a volunteer to talk the person through the Help Scheme letter and discuss their options,” says Nicola. “When they get that form through the door, some people think “oh help!” and are daunted by it, and feel they can’t do it. But when they get that face to face support and someone is talking them through it, it builds their confidence and they feel able to go ahead with the installation. Most people we have visited have felt able to deal with the Help Scheme direct after it has been explained to them.”

Being involved in the home visit service benefits WRVS and its volunteers as well as the people they support. Nicola says: “Working on this project is raising the profile of WRVS, which is an advantage to us and our service users. We have also recruited more volunteers and have been able to keep existing volunteers involved who are sadly without a role at this current time. People volunteer for different reasons but they all get satisfaction from the volunteering – the company, the feeling of being useful and helping others, all lifts morale and they see the difference they are making to people’s lives.

“We’ve got some wonderful volunteers. We have a young man – John - in the Meridian Region who has Downs syndrome and really wanted to help out. I rang his mum and had a chat and they both came along to the training session. At the end of it, his mum actually became a WRVS volunteer! They said that they would work in a pair. John had such a big smile on his face, like he had just won the Lottery, and was so happy that he could help somebody else.”

It also brings wider benefits to the eligible people that they support. “Through this service, we’re reaching people who we’ve never reached before - finding people who are really isolated but could do with some services. Recently, I visited a lady who told me she had an appointment at a hospital and was telling me how much it cost to get there. She asked if WRVS run a bus service and although we don’t, I was able to tell her there is an NHS bus where you just pay £5 and can be driven to any hospital appointment within that city.”

Volunteer profile – Norma and Ian Kennedy

Norma and Ian are a husband and wife in their 70s who volunteer for the Home Library Service, which brings books to people who are housebound. Norma says, “I do this with my husband Ian because I don’t drive.” They got involved with the Home Visit service when notes were sent round asking for volunteers to help. Norma said, “Having done the home visits through the library, we’ve got used to going to people’s houses and how to approach them. We’ve built up quite a relationship with the people we’ve supported.”

So far, Norma and Ian have supported three people under the Home Visit service, providing each of them with options advice. Norma said: “All of them had a basic idea, but wanted to be sure before they committed themselves. We’re in our 70s ourselves so we don’t talk about ‘older people’ – it’s more about the language, and talking it through. What seems to a technical person to be layman’s terms is still more than us ‘mere mortals’ understand!”

“One lady we went to see had a second TV and didn’t know what she was going to do with that. She was a very competent woman, but didn’t want to make the phone call, so we did that for her. The engineer came out and put a new aerial in, installed a digibox on her TV, and when we rang back she said that she was very happy and everything had gone fine.

“Another gentleman we visited was very agitated about the switchover. He had had a stroke, and had also recently fallen for a scam on his computer, which meant he had had to replace all his bank cards. The TV being switched over was the last straw. The gentleman was entitled to free help from the Help Scheme and my husband helped him and his family talk it through. His wife, grandson and daughter were there, so they understood how to help him sort it out. I rang back to check all was OK, and he had got it sorted.”

What Norma enjoys most about working on the home visit service is the difference she can make to somebody. “It’s the satisfaction you feel when people have come to a decision or if things are clearer for them when we leave than when we arrive,” she said.

Please can we take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to all the volunteers who have been involved with this project.

As part of the outreach activity around the digital TV switchover, Digital Outreach delivers a targeted awareness programme on behalf of the Switchover Help Scheme.

The targeted awareness programme increases awareness of the Help Scheme amongst eligible people in areas where the Help Scheme has seen less of a response. The outreach activity is focused on local groups in areas where there are high numbers of eligible people who, without some extra support, may not come forward to use the scheme.

Hamara, a community centre based in Leeds, has been working with us to reach eligible people through the targeted awareness programme in Yorkshire. 

Habib Khan, Business Development Manager of Hamara, says: “Hamara has been around for 15 years now so we’re well known here. The word ‘Hamara’ means ‘ours’ in Urdu – we belong to the whole community, no matter what background or religion people are from. We work with older people, young people, people with special needs ... as well as in partnership with big organisations like Sports England, NHS and Big Lottery Fund to tackle issues in the community. We also work with the Council and support and signpost other community organisations.”

When asked why Hamara got involved in the targeted awareness programme, Habib said: “The Digital Outreach manager for Yorkshire, Liz Andrew, got in touch with us and we had a chat about the switchover work. We felt this fitted into our outcomes, and we thought the Help Scheme was a good programme.  It appealed to us because it’s a national campaign - people in the community are often afraid of national campaigns and don’t think the message is relevant to them. We thought that if we were involved, we could help people feel more comfortable and get the messages across.”

Sukanya Ganguly, Project Coordinator, has been co-ordinating the targeted awareness programme at Hamara. She says: “Our role is to raise awareness of the Help Scheme amongst eligible people in the community. We’ve been going out to talk to people from various backgrounds – for example we’ve been to churches, mosques, Sikh temples, Asian centres , West Indian community centres etc. We quickly found that lots of people in the community weren’t clear about what was happening - they knew that switchover was happening, but not whether they would be affected or what they needed to do.”

Hamara’s role is important in helping people access the Help Scheme, even if they have been contacted by mail.  Sukanya says: “Often, people tell me they got their Help Scheme letters but didn’t read them because they thought it was junk mail and threw it away. We are able to explain that they need to take action and they are eligible for help, and because they trust us we can overcome that barrier.

“Being trusted is really important in actually being able to get the message to the community – some groups think they already know about switchover, or are put off because it’s a national campaign and don’t think it applies to them. Because people know Hamara as a community centre and they already know us, they think “OK, let’s hear what they have to say.”

One of the most common barriers Hamara had to overcome to help people access the Help Scheme is language. “The leaflets in different languages are a really helpful start”, says Sukanya, “but our volunteers also speak the local languages, which is particularly useful for the elderly who are often not comfortable at all with English. For example, I have an appointment next week in the Bangladeshi centre, and the person I was organising it with told me the elderly ladies only speak Bengali. I was able to say “I’m a Bengali!”, so now those ladies know they will be able to understand and speak to me easily. If they have a question after reading the leaflet, they can ask, and get an answer in their own language.” 

As well as the language barrier, Sukanya has found that getting people to take up the offer of help is sometimes challenging!  “At some sessions, people already had digital TV so it was difficult to convince them that they could get help if they had a second TV – getting them to listen and get that message. It’s difficult to keep their attention when they think they already have it and don’t need to listen. One trick I’ve found is to give them a leaflet and say “If you know of anyone else who might need help...” getting them to pass the information on to a friend and hoping that they will then see the information is relevant to them.”

Sukanya has found overcoming these challenges through the targeted awareness programme very rewarding. “All the events we did which included the Asian Blind Association event, the Beeston Festival and the Learning Disability Week, have all been really good and heart-warming,” she says. “At the end of it, we got a good response from most of the participants”.

“I also had a session with the ladies from the care home in Montague Burton Resource Centre where there was one lady who was quite aged. She had had a letter from the Help Scheme saying she was entitled to free help, but she only spoke a regional language and was quite confused. One of the other ladies got me to meet her. She said “Why should I change, I don’t even watch TV anyway!” but I said “Auntie, what if you change your mind?” She didn’t know what to do with the letter. I filled in the letter for her and posted it for her, and now she has got her installation done. I ticked that she needed Urdu so that someone from the call centre would call her back in Urdu. I had a hard time convincing her to get her TV sorted but it was really rewarding."

Working on the programme has benefited Hamara as well as the people they support. Sukanya said that one of the biggest plus points has been working on a national project. “If we are trying to build a new relationship and we can say we are working on the switchover project, they are aware of the project and listen to you more. Having a national scheme behind us has been a big advantage to us that we can continue to use later on.”

Sukanya says working on the project has also benefited her and her volunteers. “I was talking to one of the volunteers, Hammad, and he said he thought this would be good for his CV, has increased his confidence a lot and has taught him how to go and approach people he doesn’t know.  For me, I really like how working on the programme has helped me get better at working with elderly people and people with special needs. The little things are rewarding, like someone saying ‘thank you’.  

“It’s benefited all of us – Hamara, the volunteers – all of us. It’s helped us develop our relationships in the community and other centres – for example Beeston Village Community Centre, APNA Centre, and the Sikh temples, where we met quite a few people and exchanged information and leaflets with them about what each of us does, so it strengthened our relationships so next time we want to get in touch with them they’ll know who we are and remember our switchover work.”

Hamara is pleased with the support received from staff at Digital Outreach and the Help Scheme.  “It’s been really great working with Digital Outreach because we got all the help we needed, from the moment we started training,” says Sukanya. “Once we got started on the project, I had a few queries from elderly people who wanted a call back from the Help Scheme and I’m sure all of them got contacted, it was all taken care of.  This is important for how we are seen in the community – we don’t want to promise someone something and for it not to happen, and with Digital Outreach and the Help Scheme we didn’t have to worry about this. We got all the leaflets and materials that we needed and everybody has been really good.”

Thanks to Sukanya, Hammad, Habib and all at Hamara for the excellent work they have been doing during the run-up to switchover in Leeds. 

Following the success of the pilot programme in Peterborough in July 2011, Digital Outreach's new venture Convey has been commissioned to roll out six more outreach programmes by social marketing experts Corporate Culture on behalf of Anglian Water.

The behaviour change campaign will be rolled out to specific areas of Bedford, Southend and Thurrock this Autumn, with three further towns to follow in the New Year. It’s designed to get people to think as responsibly about water as they do about recycling.

It aims to encourage people to make small, step by step changes to how they dispose of fats, oils and grease (FOG) and ‘unflushables’ (such as sanitary waste and wipes) to help reduce blockages in the sewerage network, which costs millions of pounds each year to clear and causes pollution.

Convey will identify trusted, well-known local community organisations and provide them with training, literature, giveaways and small grants to enable them to cascade the message to other local groups like community groups, children’s centres, faith groups, mother and toddler groups and pre-schools.

A launch event is being planned for the middle of October to celebrate the beginning of the outreach programmes, which will last around a month each.

If you’re a voluntary and community sector organisation and you’d like to be first to hear about future projects like this one, update your organisation's details on our database.

Work with statutory and charitable organisations is vital in getting the message out to local communities about switchover and the Help Scheme, but some of the most isolated people fall outside of these networks and are the ‘hardest to reach’. To reach these people, the Help Scheme has devised the innovative ‘Communities Programme’. The programme, managed by Digital Outreach, uses word of mouth to generate interest among those people that the most isolated people already know and trust most. These ‘community supporters’ might range from local shopkeepers, hairdressers, carers, and community counsellors to drivers for community car services, postmen, GPs and psychiatric nurses.

Partnering with community organisations like Suffolk ACRE and Rural Community Councils, it facilitates a more indirect approach to reaching people than in other elements of outreach work.

Suffolk ACRE has been working on the Communities Programme in Anglia since February 2011. We spoke to Nat Lomas, Project Co-ordinator, about the impact they are making ‘on the ground’.

What does Suffolk ACRE do?

“Suffolk ACRE was established in 1937 to help communities in Suffolk identify and tackle their needs through community action.

“Basically, we help rural communities in Suffolk with things that matter to them. For example, we work with village halls, parish councils, voluntary groups, social enterprises, local transport, community transport, funding advice, good neighbour schemes, community buildings insurance, ICT support and affordable housing. We have a very rural focus, but we also have specific projects that work in more urban areas such as Ipswich, for example the Brightspace Social Enterprise Centre, Ipswich Dial a Ride and various employment and training programmes.”

Why did you get involved in the Communities Programme?

“We were contacted by Gloucester Rural Community Council, which is our equivalent in Gloucester; because they had been involved in the programme in their region and they thought it was a really useful, good project to get involved with. They thought it would be a good thing for us to get involved with because it’s helping people in rural areas who might not see the more mainstream Help Scheme advertising and publicity as they are so rurally based. The big billboards and posters are mainly in the towns so those in villages, particularly those who don’t get into the town, might not be aware that switchover is coming or that they can get some help.”

What part does your organisation play in delivering the programme?

“We’re covering the Sudbury and Tacolneston areas. We enrolled a group of volunteers and we’ve got them working out in the ‘field’ so to speak, talking to people who are ‘trusted voices’ in villages. Our 38 volunteers come from local villages and parishes, and we also have seven paid staff from Suffolk ACRE who are volunteering for the project often in their own time. We’re really lucky to have such dedicated staff and volunteers!”

How important is Suffolk ACRE in helping eligible people access the Help Scheme in rural areas?

 “In the area we cover, a lot of people receive their TV signal from a relay transmitter so they haven’t had the chance to prepare early for digital. A lot of people are worried that they’ll lose all their channels and they are really reassured when they know someone will help them through the process. Talking to a friendly face, who they know and trust, really gives them confidence in the Help Scheme. Some people really need the help to fill in their Help Scheme forms or make a phone call to the Help Scheme. And the volunteers are only too happy to spend time with people to help them with their new equipment. One lady phoned us saying her digibox wasn’t working, but when the volunteer went round to help they found it wasn’t plugged in! So the volunteer spent a bit of time repeating what the Help Scheme engineer had explained - cups of tea were involved and everyone was happy!”

What are the biggest challenges in your area?

“There are 400-plus parishes in Suffolk, and most of these are covered by our volunteers. In the one or two areas where we are lacking in volunteers, it’s taken more time and effort to ‘get into’ the village. A lot of pubs and shops have closed which has exaggerated this impact, so sometimes it’s just houses and it’s more difficult to find the community venue that will give us a way into the community. We tend to send the staff in to these areas as often having the name of Suffolk ACRE behind them helps gain access to the village community activists. We’ve been around a long time and people know who we are.

And what is most rewarding?

“The most rewarding is getting the stories back! Volunteers love going out and doing the job, but writing up the case studies isn’t always as high a priority to them as making sure someone has had the help they are eligible for. The stories really show the impact we are having on individuals through the programme and I love knowing that, say, Doris is going to be able to carry on watching Doctors at lunchtime because of the help she’s received from us and the Help Scheme!”

Could you tell me about anyone in the 5% who your community supporters have helped to access the Help Scheme?

“One of our community supporters has been a publican for over 30 years in the area and knows a lot of people. One customer who comes in regularly with her husband had had a severe stroke in the last year, and since then the publican had almost avoided talking to the couple because he didn’t know how to interact with them. But when the couple came in for their regular meal one evening, he almost walked straight into them and had to summon up the courage to ask how things were. He noticed their drinks were on the Help Scheme beer mats and realised the lady may now be eligible for the scheme.

“The couple left that evening with the Help Scheme number, and popped back in a few weeks later to say they had booked in their appointment with the engineer and that the Help Scheme had been very helpful. This was a great outcome for everyone involved – the lady got the help she was entitled to, and the publican felt he learned something about himself and became more comfortable dealing with people who have disabilities.”   

How else has working on the programme benefited the volunteers?

“After the workshops, I’ve heard people say ‘That was a really good day’ which was nice, and I fed this back. They love going out and doing the work. For some of them, it’s really increased their confidence. They’ve started off speaking to people they know, which has given them a bit of confidence, and then moved on to speak to people who they just recognise. It’s built upon their skills and helped them become well-known in their communities.”

Has working on the Communities Programme benefited Suffolk ACRE?

“Yes, it has – before we worked on this programme our main work was dealing with groups, but this has made us aware that working with individuals is really effective and brought home the problems that some people have out there. It’s opened our eyes to some of the issues people face. It’s also widened our volunteer base and we have a really good bunch of volunteers now, who we can work with again in the future. The support from Digital Outreach has been brilliant! Debra and Taniya (from Carillion) have both been really supportive.”

What’s the best thing about working on the Communities Programme?

“Apart from the fact that we are helping people through the switchover by supporting them to access the Help Scheme, the best thing for me is all the new people I get to meet. I’ve met every single volunteer, and have met lots of other people through going to group meetings and regional meetings – including people in Cambridgeshire ACRE and Norfolk ACRE who I’d never previously met. Before this programme, I didn’t get out of the office much, but I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve also done some volunteering myself and got to know people in my own village, which has been really rewarding.”