Schools for Silver Surfers

ERoSH and Digital Unite (DU) are working together to trial a new initiative to help sheltered scheme managers to link up with local schools.

The aim is to help schools and sheltered housing schemes find a way to deliver IT taster events giving older people a good first taste of being on the Internet. The events will coincide with Silver Surfers' Day (15 May 2009) but can be held any time during May. There will be resources and advice available from DU.

Some sheltered scheme managers already deliver these events annually but not usually in conjunction with schools but the initiative aims to widen knowledge about this opportunity and for everyone to learn how to make it easier to plan and deliver these sorts of events.

The thinking behind the initiative is using the resources of the school - teachers, pupils and equipment - for older people, so that they can learn about modern technology and how to surf the Internet. The young people can also gain experience of being tutors, with a little training and management by their teachers. In practice, this might mean older people visiting their local school for tutoring, or students visiting schemes to help answer questions using a computer. The approach is not prescriptive but DU has examples of both ways, notably at Broadgreen School in Liverpool; Ampney Crucis School in Gloucestershire and Chesham High School in Buckinghamshire.

Why should sheltered housing get involved with schools?
There are the obvious benefits to older people of getting online: they can shop more cheaply and easily, keep in touch more easily, follow hobbies more easily, develop social contacts, etc. In addition, housing providers have increasing obligations to their residents to help improve not just the place they live in but their quality of life. For most scheme managers this not just an obligation but something that makes their own jobs worthwhile.

Linking up with schools to provide these services, helps fulfil these obligations. These are required by government and include the following, known as Supplementary Standards of the Quality Assessment Framework:

• S1.1 Informing service-users and S1.2 Consulting and involving service-users - (both done much more easily if service-users are computer literate)
• S1.3 Empowerment and supporting independence - (if you can look things up and interact on the Internet, you become more empowered and independent)
• S1.4 Participation in the wider community - (linking with a local school opens up community involvement whether residents go to the school or students come to the housing)
• S3.2 Choice, sensitivity and responsiveness - (the more ways landlords and managers have of communicating with residents, the more immediately and sensitively they can respond)
• S4.1 Continuous improvement - (once residents are online and ongoingly supported by school students, they can continue to develop their independence, empowerment and abilities to make informed choices and feed into consultation.

DU will be producing a short-form of their Silver Surfers' Day Event Holders' Planning Guide for scheme managers, for those who might be interested in taking this opportunity further.

To get a copy of the guide, email a request for the 'Silver Surfers' Day Event Holders' Planning Guide for Scheme Managers' to du@digitalunite.net with your name, job title and organisation.