We have used our expertise in community engagement to deliver outreach programmes for a number of prestigious organisations. Here are some of our clients.
Our clients
Digital UK is an independent, not for profit organisation set up to lead the implementation of switchover. Digital UK is responsible for informing viewers about how to manage the process and for providing general information about the Switchover Help Scheme.
Digital Outreach has been delivering Digital UK’s Digital Switchover Community Outreach Programme since 2007 throughout the entire switchover period (to 2012). During the run-up to switchover in each region, we commission and grant-fund local voluntary and community sector organisations to raise awareness and understanding of the switchover. Through these organisations, we target vulnerable people in six core groups to provide the support and advice they need to understand what they need to do when the switchover takes place and what help is available.
To date, we have provided information and advice to target groups at over 8,000 local events, spreading the message about switchover to over 700,000 people. By the end of the programme, we estimate we will have reached well over a million people.
Read more about our work with Digital UK in their annual report.
Ofcom and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS)
In partnership with Ofcom and BIS, Digital Outreach explored whether the embedded outreach model – used successfully in the Digital TV switchover – could be successfully adapted to support and motivate older people to use the internet. Digital Outreach devised and delivered a demonstration project, which became known as Get Connected, Get Online. With an incredibly tight timeline of only three months from proposal to project conclusion, we successfully delivered over 100 community-based internet ‘taster sessions’ through our local voluntary sector partners, directly engaging with almost 1,200 older people and people on low incomes over a two-month period.
Achieving an increase in knowledge and confidence in using the internet amongst 62% of participants, we successfully demonstrated that our outreach programmes deliver cost-effective, measurable results for clients, whilst also helping to improve the lives of vulnerable people in the community.
“It’s been so exciting. It’s been amazing. First I got in touch with my niece, Nicky, and then through her with my sister in law. I knew she’d taken redundancy but I’d no idea she was going to Haiti and now I know what she’s doing and what she’s taking over there .... It’s amazing, I keep thinking, ‘I was washing my windows half an hour ago and now here I am, hearing all about Haiti, I feel really involved.’” – Mrs B
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We provide a targeted outreach service, intensive outreach service and home visit service to Carillion Energy Services (formerly Eaga). These services are based around the switch to digital TV and the Switchover Help Scheme, which offers help to older and disabled people who may find it difficult to switch to digital TV.
We provide a targeted awareness service in areas where responses to the Help Scheme are low. We work with voluntary and community sector partners to train up teams of volunteers who focus on these areas, using their extensive local knowledge and contacts to raise awareness of the Help Scheme in a sensitive, carefully targeted way.
The intensive outreach service aims to reach some of the most isolated people who fall outside of voluntary and community sector support networks and are the ‘hardest to reach’. The programme 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 to drivers for community car services.
The home visit service involves deploying local CRB checked volunteers who we source through our trusted voluntary sector partners. People who sign up for the Help Scheme can request a home visit if they need a little extra help with the switchover that cannot be provided over the phone.
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The Switchover Help offers help to older and disabled people who may find it difficult to switch to digital TV.
Digital Outreach provides targeted, intensive and home visit outreach services for Carillion on behalf of the Switchover Help Scheme. To find out more about the services we provide, visit our case studies pages.
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Digital Outreach has partnered with Looking Local, a provider of interactive TV services to deliver a research project. The research explored the potential interest and take up of interactive TV services within a region that had recently switched to digital TV.
The Isle of Man had recently been through the switchover process and Digital Outreach had been active on the island for many months, building up strong partner relationships. We were able to use our existing networks on the island to respond quickly to the request, identifying an appropriate individual based on the island who had excellent links with Looking Local’s target groups. The planning, work and reporting were completed quickly and efficiently, through a local person that people know and trust.