Over the last three and a half years, 100% Digital Leeds has been working with GIPSIL to increase digital inclusion for their clients, with an initial focus on supporting access to employment. Through its Employment and Engagement service, GIPSIL has started to tackle digital exclusion to ensure that lack of access to technology is no longer a barrier to a stable home or meaningful employment.
100% Digital Leeds also facilitated new partnerships with Amazon Web Services and Jangala, providing GIPSIL with the resources to gift laptops and connectivity to their clients. GIPSIL’s staff also offer long-term, individualised support to build their clients’ digital skills and confidence.
GIPSIL’s Support Workers identify clients whose lack of access to suitable devices and connectivity is preventing them from progressing closer to employment. Staff provide them with a laptop and connectivity, as well as offering support to use these to their full potential. The trusted relationships that GIPSIL’s staff have with their clients plays a critical role in the success of these interventions. For people who have experienced trauma, exploitation or systemic disadvantage, the offer of a free laptop, SIM, or wifi box can seem ‘too good to be true’. But through consistent kindness and patient outreach, GIPSIL builds trust over time.
Embedding digital inclusion support within GIPSIL’s existing services has already seen many positive outcomes for clients. One client has used their device to start their own business, another is setting up a care leavers network, and many have been able to access learning and find secure housing.
“MF came to the country as a refugee with a 9-year-old daughter. MF had been in Rotherham, and had faced racism and much hardship prior to her temporary accommodation placement in Leeds. She was studying a Health & Social Care Level 1 course, but was studying from her phone. We gifted her a laptop with the funding from AWS, and a data SIM via the National Databank. These made studying much easier, and allowed her to place her bids for local authority housing. MF has subsequently secured a job in the NHS and is also rehoused by the local authority. MF thanked us for the laptop, saying it made her life so much easier with studying and applying for jobs, and it allowed her to keep in touch with family in Eritrea”
Case study provided by GIPSIL.
100% Digital Leeds also supported GIPSIL with a UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) grant to purchase laptops for use on site, and to set up a new video conferencing suite which allowed the organisation to expand its training offer. 100% Digital Leeds is now working with GIPSIL to find and secure funding to employ an officer to deliver digital skills support across the service, and further improve the organisation’s digital inclusion offer.
“A major challenge to deliver digital inclusion support was funding and an initial lack of awareness of where to get digital support. 100% Digital Leeds have not only sign-posted us in the right direction, but supported us through the process and opened doors for future on-going digital inclusion.”
Brent Riley, Employment and Engagement Worker, Engage Leeds.
Digital inclusion to access housing and employment
GIPSIL is a charity that supports people in the most disadvantaged communities in Leeds and Wakefield. GIPSIL aims to prevent homelessness, improve wellbeing, and build community.
GIPSIL works with various partners to deliver four services:
- Community, Health and Prevention: Wellbeing support for children and young people in primary, secondary or college education, as well as outreach settings across Leeds.
- Elevate: Maintenance of GIPSIL’s property portfolio, lead on abandoned homes renovation and provision of volunteer placements and apprenticeships.
- Our Way Leeds: Supporting young people who are navigating housing challenges or transitioning to independent living, while providing wrap around support for positive long-term outcomes.
- Engage Leeds: Providing one-on-one assistance to individuals and families at risk of losing their homes or wanting to live more independently.
Delivered in partnership with Barca, Connect Housing, and Riverside, Engage Leeds offers tailored support to address housing challenges, improve well-being, and foster connections within the community. By collaborating with local partners and services, Engage Leeds empowers people to create sustainable solutions and achieve stability in their lives. Through their compassionate and personalised approach, Engage Leeds embodies a commitment to making housing support accessible and impactful across Leeds
Engage Leeds and OWL Employment and Engagement Service helps people explore job opportunities, education, and training. They provide tailored support with CV writing, job applications, finding work experience, volunteering, and accessing learning opportunities.
The service recognises the difficulty in applying for jobs when clients have only a phone and a limited data allowance, or no connectivity at all. Given that 90% of all jobs are only advertised online it is essential for job seekers to have access to the internet and the digital skills required to apply for jobs, such as creating documents for CVs, attending online interviews and managing emails.
Improving access to digital devices and connectivity
After identifying affordability of digital equipment and connectivity as a barrier to people accessing training and work, GIPSIL has taken a number of steps to provide clients with devices and connectivity.
GIPSIL recondition their old staff phones and gift them to clients unable to afford a smartphone. They gift National Databank SIM cards along with the phones, providing clients with free data, texts and calls. Even when a client’s case is closed, they can come back to their support worker for another SIM card if they need to.
“SIM cards help people when they are newly employed to get their shifts sent over. This helps with silly things like ringing your employer to let them know if you can change shift or whatever. It’s often small things that we take for granted, but it makes a huge difference. It makes people think, ‘I’m a part of society, I can connect like everyone else”
Brent Riley, Employment and Engagement Worker, Engage Leeds.
100% Digital Leeds facilitated a partnership between GIPSIL and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The partnership led to AWS providing GIPSIL with 35 laptops to gift to clients without a suitable device. The partnership was mutually beneficial, supporting GIPSIL’s aims and objectives and AWS’s social value agenda. Alongside this, the 100% Digital Leeds partnership with Jangala has enabled GIPSIL to provide their clients who struggle to afford the cost of wifi with GetBoxes – free ‘plug in and go’ connectivity solutions.
This collaborative approach has helped GIPSIL provide clients with the tools and confidence to navigate the digital world independently to gain meaningful employment. Clients have also used the laptops to access training, bid for houses, and to stay in touch with friends and family.
“Being able to access the internet often supports them just feeling safe. Laptops and tablets help people access online courses, children with homework and place housing bids. Refugees can better keep in touch with families at home.”
Brent Riley, Employment and Engagement Worker, Engage Leeds.
One support worker shared the story of a woman who had just arrived in the UK from Mauritius. GIPSIL enrolled her in college courses, and, with the help of a laptop and Get Box, she could learn from home, help her child with schoolwork, and bid on housing, improving the future for her whole family.
“The laptop and Get Box helped so she could study from home. The family had no access to any digital media, so it was life changing for them all.”
Jodie Lazenby Employment and Engagement Support Worker, Engage Leeds.
A further example of how digital inclusion support provided by GIPSIL has helped a client access learning and move closer towards employment:
“L was gifted a laptop he has been using it to keep on top of all his college work. He is expected to pass E3 ESOL and Maths this summer and is now applying for work with his laptop. He has also passed his CSCS course. He literally used the laptop for hours of revising for the multiple-choice question exam. L, said that without the laptop he wouldn’t have been able to access all the things he has been able to accomplish.”
Case study provided by Pete Pickavance, Senior Employment and Engagement Worker.
GIPSIL has also been generous enough to distribute laptops to people who need them to access employment and housing through a number of partner organisations:
- Afrikindness
- Community Links
- LS14 Trust
- The Bidding Café at Chapel FM
- RETAS
- PAFRAS
- Proverbs 31
Funding to purchase equipment to use on site
In 2024 100% Digital Leeds awarded GIPSIL £25,000 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), after 100% Digital Leeds was allocated funding to increase the capacity of community organisations to increase digital inclusion. The funding had a specific focus on interventions and activities that build people’s confidence to use digital tools and services as an enabler to increase financial resilience.
GIPSIL used this funding to purchase equipment to support client digital inclusion on site. The fund allowed GIPSIL to purchase a bank of laptops for use by clients, plus accessories such as headphones and a secure charging cabinet. They have also used the funding to set up one of their training rooms as a video conferencing suite, which they now call the Teams Room.
The Teams Room allows GIPSIL to deliver courses for those experiencing digital poverty. Courses that have been requested by service users include online safety, accessing and navigating NHS systems, online mental health and neurodivergent support, job searching and employment navigation, CV writing and online job applications, and accessing universal credit and general benefits advice.
By allowing people to dial in remotely, the Teams room has helped GIPSIL to expand their reach past the 20 people the room holds in person. The dial-in feature also means GIPSIL can invite a wider range of external trainers, speakers, and delivery partners, as travel time and costings no longer need to be considered when forming new partnerships.
“It hugely expands the scope of our offer to support digital inclusion in the heart of the Gipton community, and it’s also accessible to Seacroft area very close by. As well as engaging new services users who need digital support, the equipment increases capacity to provide courses and training to our existing 2,000 services users that are at risk of homelessness or mental ill-health living in deprived communities experiencing digital poverty. We are also keen for our partners to collaborate with us to reduce digital poverty and use the room. We had 50 partners attend the launch of the room. Now the room has been refurbished and equipment installed, we are very excited to start increasing our offer and deliver the new projects.”
Brent Riley, Employment and Engagement Worker, Engage Leeds.
Next steps
100% Digital Leeds will continue to work with GIPSIL to embed digital inclusion into the support offered by the Engage service, and the wider organisation. Beyond employment and education access, GIPSIL has also noted the need for support with digital health and accessing apps like PATCHs and the NHS app to improve access to GPs, as well as sessions around transport apps. 100% Digital Leeds is working with GIPSIL to find and secure funding to employ an officer to deliver digital skills support across the service, and further improve the organisation’s digital inclusion offer.
“Ideally, we would like to employ a specific staff member working exclusively on up-skilling the people we support digitally, but we do not currently have the funding capacity to do this. This would make such a difference if we had a person doing this role full time.”
Brent Riley, Employment and Engagement worker, Engage Leeds.