Purple Patch Arts is a charity established in 2009 and based in Beeston. Their mission is to provide opportunities for learning-disabled people across Yorkshire to thrive through engagement with innovative, creative lifelong learning.
Purple Patch’s inclusive, person-centred approach focusses on arts and creativity, allowing people of all ages and levels of support needs to access the organisation’s programme in their own way, empowering people to learn in the way that suits them best. This approach makes the organisation particularly well placed to support digital inclusion for its members:
“Digital inclusion is linked in with our definition of learning, engaging with the world. It’s even more relevant now that so much is online and such a big part of people’s lives.”
Róisín Reynolds, Project Coordinator, Purple Patch
Purple Patch has supported the digital inclusion of people with learning disabilities for over a decade, working closely with 100% Digital Leeds since the programme’s launch. Purple Patch were active members of the ALaDDIN network, where they have both shared their best practice and learned from the good practice of other organisations in the sector.
In 2024 Purple Patch received a £10,000 grant via the Leeds Digital Inclusion Fund. The funds supported the embedding of creative digital inclusion interventions across the organisation’s Lifelong Learning Programme for learning disabled people, through staff training, and improved access to digital equipment and resources.
“We’ve got two prongs to our digital inclusion offer. We’re supporting our participants on how to stay safe online and then also using more digital apps and tools in order to make our programmes better and more accessible as well.”
Róisín Reynolds, Project Coordinator, Purple Patch
Most recently, Purple Patch shared their experience of using arts and culture as a motivator for improved digital skills and confidence with 100% Digital Leeds and The University of Sheffield, supporting the development of the Arts Council England funded Arts, Culture and Older People: Research Project and 100% Digital Leeds Toolkit.
The organisation’s upcoming plans include a focus on staying safe online.
The Purple Patch Approach
Purple Patch use creative activities, inclusive learning methods, and environments that involve and inspire learning-disabled people to engage with learning in a positive and impactful way. This ‘Purple Patch Approach’ supports people to explore ideas, themes and topics in ways which are accessible, imaginative, and joyful.
All of Purple Patch’s work is delivered using arts-based methods, including music, drama, visual art, movement, and literature. Sessions include elements of group working, multi-sensory activity, gamification, and imaginative discovery. They have found that using the arts and creativity to facilitate learning supports engagement, improves motivation, and helps people to develop analytical and interpretive skills.
Using this approach, Purple Patch can be ambitious in the subjects they cover:
“We don’t see any reason why a person with even the most complex needs can’t engage with any subject, and we see it as our job to bring them to life creatively. In all our work, we enable our participants to be positively challenged and inspired by learning about, and engaging with, the world around them.”
Purple Patch Arts
Learning-disabled people face multiple barriers to digital inclusion. During the Covid pandemic Purple Patch saw 56% of their participants accessing the Zoom sessions that they ran in place of face-to-face delivery. However, they witnessed first-hand the barriers that people faced in accessing an online offer, not least a lack of internet access, digital skills, and equipment. In addition, they saw that a lack of participant and support-network awareness, experience, and confidence in using technology, excluded many participants from their offer. They found that some families and carers were reluctant to believe that digital services were accessible to learning-disabled participants, especially older participants and those with greater access needs.
Developing engaging and accessible digital skills sessions
Purple Patch has supported the digital inclusion of people with learning disabilities for over a decade.
In 2019 Purple Patch was awarded a grant from the Future Digital Inclusion Fund, a five-year programme funded by the Department for Education and managed by Good Things Foundation. The aim of the programme was to help people to improve their digital skills, particularly unemployed and/or low skilled people, as well as people with disabilities and/or learning difficulties.
The funding supported Purple Patch to design and deliver creative, interactive digital skills sessions focussing on what the internet can be used for, how to stay safe online, and being aware of what we’re sharing on social media. Purple Patch used the funding to design fun sessions including creating multi-sensory ‘world-wide webs’ and playing fishing games to learn about phishing. The sessions supported over 250 learning-disabled people to develop the skills needed to more safely engage with the online world.
Evaluation of The Future Digital Inclusion Fund highlights that the fund worked well for many participants because it allowed organisations like Purple Patch to provide person-centred support. Organisations were encouraged to design digital inclusion interventions around individual participants’ needs and personal circumstances, helping participants to develop the motivation needed to become long-term, independent users of digital technology.
Following the end of the funded project Purple Patch continued to strongly encourage their teams to embed digital work within sessions, but varying levels of digital experience and skills across the organisation’s workforce meant this wasn’t consistent. Purple Patch also found that their aging digital equipment meant staff were limited in how much digital they could embed into session delivery.
“We were using digital more, but we didn’t have the tools to do what we wanted. Our iPads were really out of date, so we couldn’t use certain apps that might engage people. In our sessions we have people who don’t have access to online at home, so it was important to get apps that are accessible. We wanted those tools and digital experiences that allow those participants to engage just as much as someone who does understand that world or does have the internet at home.”
Róisín Reynolds, Project Coordinator, Purple Patch
Embedding digital inclusion support into the Lifelong Learning Programme
In 2024 Purple Patch were awarded a grant via the Leeds Digital Inclusion Fund to help them embed digital inclusion support across the organisation’s Lifelong Learning Programme. The grant allowed Purple Patch to maximise its focus on digital inclusion by embedding creative digital inclusion interventions in a strategic and sustainable way through staff training, and improved access to digital equipment and resources.
Purple Patch’s Lifelong Learning Programme supports learning-disabled adults to explore a wide range of different topics based on a yearly theme. Staff use creative methods such as art, drama, music, movement, and multi-sensory activity to make learning fun and accessible. The programme supports participants to develop their confidence, independence, communication, and social skills to improve their wellbeing and to challenge themselves.
Purple Patch see the impact of the sessions in the increased wellbeing, confidence, independence, and life skills of their participants:
- 86% of Lifelong Learning participants feel more able to try things on their own
- 95% of Lifelong Learning participants reported learning new skills and things about the world
- 97% agree that Purple Patch makes them feel more independent
“I feel more confident at Purple Patch because I’ve learned stuff I haven’t before and you encourage me to join in.”
“Coming to Purple Patch makes me feel confident.”
“We learn real life subjects that goes on in the world.”
Participants at Purple Patch Arts
The increased focus on digital inclusion came after consultation with 140 participants of previous Lifelong Learning Programmes. A key theme that emerged was the desire to improve their digital skills. This was taken to the organisation’s Purple Steering Group, a dedicated team of learning-disabled people who act as a bridge between participants of their Lifelong Learning Programmes and their Board of Trustees. The Purple Steering Group use their experiences, skills, and knowledge to help make decisions, give feedback, and advise on best practice. They agreed that digital skills development was a priority, saying that they were at risk of being left behind as more and more services rely on people having digital skills to access them.
“We think it’s really important to incorporate digital in our Lifelong Learning Programmes, as so much of our daily life uses digital. As one of our participants said, ‘I think we should carry on using interactive things [apps], it’s important because the world’s changing and we have to change with it.’”
Róisín Reynolds, Project Coordinator, Purple Patch Arts
Purple Patch’s Lifelong Learning Programmes are run by staff members from a wide range of creative disciplines. Staff were supported to improve their own digital skills through skills share activities and peer support, empowering them to feel confident in enabling participants to benefit from being digitally engaged.
The skills share was facilitated by Purple Patch’s Projects team, who are more experienced in embedding digital skills in their project work having previously designed and delivered the Future Digital Inclusion Fund digital skills sessions. The Projects team created resources and an activity bank for the skills share and continue to support Purple Patch’s wider staff teams as they embed digital in their work. This includes offering feedback on session plans and delivery, and working with staff to further develop their skills as needed. The funding means Purple Patch now have a digital training model that they can use for new staff starters, as well as to refresh existing staff skills and confidence.
Since delivering the above, Purple Patch have observed an increase in the digital activities in their programmes. Staff have used digital equipment to enhance learning activities, for example, using the GarageBand app to create train-inspired soundscapes and the Makey Makey to do exciting scientific experiments. Staff have supported participants to explore technology that can help them call 999, use Google Maps to plan journeys, and understand how to be safe when messaging people online.
As a result, staff and participants have reported an increase in digital confidence:
- 84% of participants agreed that Purple Patch helps them to feel more confident using digital resources and going online
- Staff have commented that they had more ideas, felt that they could “give it go!” and that the approach to using technology was “more fun”
Additionally, Purple Patch have learnt that participants want to explore more digital skills, such as creating music and films, learning how to use Zoom, look at recipes online, and learn more about online safety. They feel confident that due to their staff’s increased digital skills and confidence, participants’ digital goals will continue to be supported in their Programmes.
“Embedding digital activity into our approach supports us to challenge common misconceptions about how learning-disabled people can engage with digital technology and the online world. Regularly including digital activity and exploring topics through a digital lens means that we are demonstrating, through our delivery (which may be seen within a session or on social media), that we can empower learning-disabled people to be knowledgeable about the digital world, to navigate it safely, and be digitally confident, rather than being continually digitally excluded due to fear, misconceptions, or externally placed limitations.”
Purple Patch Arts
Supporting people to stay safe online, tackling misinformation and disinformation
Most recently Purple Patch have worked to further embed online safety into their Lifelong Learning Programme after seeing examples of participants falling victim to things like online grooming, bullying, and coercive control. They also had a recent incident of a participant using their phone and then clicking on a link which caused duplicate apps to be made.
Purple Patch began to tackle misinformation and disinformation through their programming, supporting participants to feel more confident in safely accessing news.
“Research by the BBC found that three quarters of people with a learning disability watch the television, but many found it difficult to follow and nearly half of them said it used too many unfamiliar words. A third said it moved too fast. Others said it contained too much information and jumped between stories without context or was emotionally distressing. It’s really important for us that we can support our participants to know a bit more about the news or feel a bit more confident about accessing the news. So, this year we’ve been trying to bring in more relevant news and information into the topics.”
Róisín Reynolds, Project Coordinator, Purple Patch
Examples of Purple Patch’s creative approach to supporting online safety and tackling misinformation and disinformation in an engaging and accessible way include:
- Exploring safe messaging using messages on a slideshow and deciding how and if participants would reply to them.
- A game exploring what to keep private online and what is okay to share, using padlocks.
- A game to spot which messages are spam or not, using a tin of spam as a prop.
- Hosting a ‘Fake News’ TV show, including acting out and presenting different news stories, with the group voting on if they think the story is real or fake.
- Having a ‘Fake News’ quiz, showing different news images and asking participants to guess if they are real or fake, then supporting participants to use an AI image generator to create their own fake image.
Purple Patch plan to continue this learning in future programming.
“We’re soon to be delivering our Connecting to Robots topic which will be all about technology, and staying safe online. This has been developed after having a lot more younger participants join our programmes and just seeing how they’re more on their phones and maybe need more support with how to stay safe online. So we’ll be tackling more about misinformation and disinformation as well in the robots weeks. And again, we’ll be using the Purple Patch approach to do that. So that means everyone in this space will be able to engage with the kind of learning that’s happening.”
Róisín Reynolds, Project Coordinator, Purple Patch
Róisín Reynolds, Project Coordinator at Purple Patch, explains how the team practically approach tailoring sessions on such a difficult topic to meet the needs of different groups and individual participants:
“We’ll write the scheme of work with all of the activity ideas and topics within the Connecting to Robots theme. We have four delivery staff teams who run our Lifelong Learning Programmes. Each team picks from the scheme of work which specific topics and activities they want to cover in their sessions so they can tailor it to their groups. The group that has quite a lot of younger participants who are on their phones, they might focus more on phone safety and how to have a good relationship with their phone. We want to make it participant focused and make it meaningful for the group that they’re working with. If someone has experienced an issue with online safety, we can work one-on-one with them in terms of giving them resources and things to signpost to as well. We’re not going to touch on a subject that’s difficult for someone, but we might talk to that person rather than do it to the whole group. We can tailor it because the staff teams know the participants in their groups so well, so they’ll know what’s appropriate to cover.”
Róisín Reynolds, Project Coordinator, Purple Patch
Digital support for families and carers
As Purple Patch embed digital inclusion support for participants into their Lifelong Learning Programmes, they also wanted to provide their participants’ families and carers with some additional information, signposting, and ways to continue the digital work covered in the learning sessions. This is especially important since Purple Patch have found that some families and carers can be reluctant to believe that digital services can be accessible to learning-disabled participants, especially older participants and those with greater access needs.
“We also get to know families and carers really well. We offer a holistic approach and with some of our themes we’ve started doing an information sheet that can be sent out to participants and their families and carers. That has resources on it that link to the theme. So when we do Connecting to Robots, we’ll hand out a sheet with online safety resources and activities that participants can do at home with their families and carers as well.”
Róisín Reynolds, Project Coordinator, Purple Patch
Purple Patch also include Digital Support for Families and Carers on their website. This includes information around:
- Connectivity: Purple Patch is able provide SIMs via the National Databank, and tablets available for loan.
- Skills: signposting to skills support available via Carers Leeds, Learn My Way, Lloyds digital helpline.
- Safety: tips for digital privacy and staying safe online.
- Confidence and motivation: ideas for improving digital confidence by taking small steps to include digital elements in your day-to-day life; an overview of digital tools commonly used in Purple Patch sessions, with examples of how they could be used at home.
Sharing learning and best practice
Purple Patch shared their learning and experience by feeding into ‘Arts, Culture and Older People: Research Project and Toolkit’, an Arts Council England funded project led by 100% Digital Leeds and the University of Sheffield.
The aim of the research, led by the University of Sheffield, was to explore whether participation in digital arts and culture could serve as an initial first step for older people to become more confident with a broader range of digital tools and services. The study found that engaging in creative activities can build confidence and motivation to help older people engage in essential digital services and stay connected with loved ones. Community-based organisations such as Purple Patch are identified as the most effective partners for digital inclusion due to their local trust
Alongside the research, 100% Digital Leeds has developed a new toolkit to encourage and support greater involvement of arts and culture within digital inclusion programmes. The toolkit is designed to shape and inform the work of organisations in the arts and culture sector, VCSE sector, or digital inclusion sector, helping them to embed digital elements into creative activities, increasing motivation, confidence, and digital inclusion for everyone.
“There’s a massive value in using the arts to support with digital. At Purple Patch we use the arts to learn about ourselves and the world. Because so much of the world now is online, doing an activity and then enhancing it with using a digital app is such an easy way to transition into using digital. If you say ‘now we’re going to do digital’ it might make our members put up some barriers. If you lead it in through doing the arts, then in their own life they’re going to feel more confident about it. ‘OK, so I’ve used that app before so I can use it again or I maybe I can try a new app’.
Purple Patch Arts