Out Together is a charity supporting the LGBTQ+ community across Yorkshire. Throughout 2024 the organisation worked with 100% Digital Leeds to embed digital inclusion into their existing offer, positioning digital as an enabler to combat loneliness and isolation for their older lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer members. Their digital support offer was co-designed with members, ensuring it was person centred and relevant to the needs of their participants. The work was supported by the city’s tech sector, including a grant from Leeds Community Foundation, funded by Cognizant, and the gift of digital equipment and volunteers from Amazon. The project saw Out Together survey their members to identify their digital support needs and drivers, informing the development of the support programme.
To further develop their offer, Out Together received advice and practical guidance from community organisations more experienced in supporting older people’s digital inclusion, including Leeds Older People’s Forum. As well as receiving support from a paid Digital Officer in weekly skills sessions, members benefit from one-to-one peer support between sessions from member ‘Digital Buddies’. As a result, Out Together have supported 45 members to develop their essential digital skills and confidence, resulting in improved social connections and reduced isolation.
“The experience we have gained has made a huge impact on our understanding of how improving the digital skills of members will develop our community coherence. Members taking part in the classes have become much more connected to Out Together and each other, which has led to increased mutual support and co-operation. We can now offer both physical and virtual connections to our existing members, and to many other LGBTQ+ people who are isolated.”
Tim Gittins, Chair of Out Together
Out Together
Out Together work with people of all ages but have a focus on supporting older people. The aim of the charity is to combat isolation and loneliness and to create a community ‘which will overcome the cultural and social barriers which can prevent us celebrating our old age with dignity’.
The LGBTQ+ community often face additional barriers to social inclusion and are therefore more likely to experience digital exclusion. Digital exclusion can make it more difficult for people to connect with others and maintain a sense of community.
“Part of our mission as a charity is to combat loneliness and isolation within the LGBTQ+ community. We have people who are scared to access services because that means they’ve got to ‘out themselves’, but they feel safe dealing with us. We want to help more of those people get online and stay connected with other people in their community. We’re enabling members to access people, access information, all those things that make their life that much better. Digital is part of the toolkit for combating loneliness and isolation.”
Tim Gittins, Chair of Out Together
Support from the city’s tech sector
Out Together received support from tech sector partners to resource this work. Out Together were awarded a grant of £9,300 by Leeds Community Foundation via a closed grants scheme funded by Cognizant, a business partnering with 100% Digital Leeds on the Tech Sector Support key initiative.
Out Together used the grant to increase their organisational capacity to develop and deliver their bespoke digital inclusion intervention over the course of 2024.
As a community organisation with a very small workforce, the grant allowed Out Together to free up the staff time needed to work with 100% Digital Leeds to:
- Understand the potential impact of embedding digital inclusion support within their existing services
- Understand the barriers to digital inclusion experienced by members
- Understand how increased digital inclusion could help improve the lives of members, focussing on outcomes important to the members themselves
- Design a bespoke digital inclusion support offer tailored to members’ needs and interests
The funding also allowed Out Together to:
- Pay for a freelance Digital Officer to lead the delivery of the digital support sessions, with the support of one volunteer and 10 members as ‘Digital Buddies’
- Purchase two large screen SIM-enabled tablets to support project delivery
- Provide volunteer travel expenses
Out Together also developed a relationship with Amazon who gifted them digital equipment including tablets and smartphones. Amazon staff also attended some of the digital skills sessions as volunteers. Digital skills sessions often require a lot of one-to-one assistance and volunteer support is invaluable. Out Together found the time and capacity offered by Amazon to be just as vital as the equipment they were gifted.
Understanding the needs of members
Central to the Out Together approach is the importance of co-designing the digital programme with their members.
“We shouldn’t be delivering any kind of support to members without having involved them in the design of what we’re doing and what the content is going to be. Everything we’re doing is in conjunction with the views of our members. It’s driven by what we’ve learned, instead of our members saying ‘well, I didn’t ask for that, but somebody somewhere decided I needed it.”
Tim Gittins, Chair of Out Together
Out Together had not delivered any digital inclusion work before working with 100% Digital Leeds. They were keen to collaborate with members to co-design their digital offer, ensuring that it would meet the individual needs of participants.
Out Together were careful not to make any assumptions about the barriers to digital inclusion experienced by their members. To better understand this they surveyed their members, asking about the barriers faced, levels of digital confidence, and what they would like to be able to do digitally.
The survey was accompanied by a member consultation assessing levels of digital confidence and literacy prior to accessing support. The session took place in person at Virgin Money’s community space. Members were encouraged to talk about their interests and their feelings about the use of digital tools and technology. 100% Digital Leeds supported the session, encouraging members to begin engaging with digital devices by playing games on iPads borrowed from Leeds Libraries’ tablet lending scheme. Despite being digital, the games, such as jigsaw apps, were familiar and recognisable, and quickly engaged members. Completing the member consultation in a fun, welcoming, non-threatening environment meant that members were more likely to open up and chat about their experiences with digital and any concerns or fears they had about the technology.
The member survey and consultation revealed:
- Many members had a low level of digital skills and confidence
- Some members did not have access to digital equipment such as smart phones and tablets
- Some members experienced health conditions and memory issues which could potentially be a barrier to learning if not properly supported
- Topics members were interested in learning about, such as video calling, travel apps, health tools, and the cloud
They also gave the organisation a baseline understanding of members’ digital skills and confidence levels before they received digital inclusion support, which they could use to evaluate the impact of the digital inclusion intervention.
Organisational peer support from Leeds Older People’s Forum
Out Together were keen to engage with other community organisations supporting digital inclusion for older people, to understand different approaches and learn from best practice. They joined the city’s Older People’s Digital Inclusion Network, co-facilitated by 100% Digital Leeds and Leeds Older People’s Forum.
Leeds Older People’s Forum offered Out Together their support by sharing existing tried and tested digital skills session resources, and providing shadowing opportunities with their experienced Digital Inclusion Officer.
“We initially consulted other organisations such as Leeds Older People’s Forum and 100% Digital Leeds. We shadowed the Leeds Older People’s Forum’s Digital Inclusion Officer to understand what worked well, and we benefited hugely from their help and experience.”
Ant Warren, Digital Officer, Out Together
Out Together used Leeds Older People’s Forum’s Be Online Stay Safe (BOSS) learning resources to run a six week ‘digital beginners’ course, supporting members to develop basic and essential digital skills.
Using the Be Online Stay Safe modules to guide participants in their first steps into digital meant that Out Together had a ready-made syllabus to follow, accompanied with ‘step-by-step’ learning guides, designed to meet the needs of older people from diverse backgrounds, and already tried and tested by organisations supporting older people in Leeds. Using this ready-made resource to deliver the initial series of digital skills sessions meant Out Together had more capacity to listen to what participants were particularly interested in learning about, helping shape the content of future sessions to support members’ particular needs and interests.
Member peer support from ‘Digital Buddies’
These initial sessions allowed Out Together to further understand how to best support members with different needs. They learned that some members, especially their older members who were completely new to digital, struggled to remember everything they had learned without step-by-step guides, one-to-one support, and practice between formal sessions. They also learned that checking in with members over the phone between skills sessions greatly improved members’ confidence, allowing them to resolve any issues so they could continue to practise and feel more ready for the next formal skills session.
“One member is aware that it takes him longer to learn than younger members of the group, but this has never put him off. We call him each week in between sessions to check if he has any questions, but he tends to prefer to practise when he comes to the sessions rather than at home on his own, as he sometimes forgets what we learned that week. Most recently, we introduced him to video calling. Once he is up and running with this at home, this should make it easier for us, and other members, to keep in touch with him whilst helping him build his confidence with more regular practise.”
Ant Warren, Digital Officer, Out Together
Out Together realised that as members learned more and their confidence grew, they ask detailed questions specific to their individual needs. Sometimes this revealed others with the same support needs, but it also slowed group progress.
To offer more one-to-one support addressing the specific needs of individual members, Out Together recruited 10 members with a higher level of digital skills and confidence to act as volunteer ‘Digital Buddies’. The ‘Digital Buddies’ allowed Out Together to be more flexible to the needs of individual members, especially those experiencing additional barriers such as health issues.
“One of our members in the initial group of trainees is an 86-year-old man who had never used a touch screen or smart device before. He also has Parkinson’s. We provided him with a tablet and paired him up with a ‘Digital Buddy’, another of our members who also has Parkinson’s and so understands the additional challenges this might present. In a little over four months, the member has gone from zero digital knowledge to making and answering video calls, meaning he can now socialise and join digital inclusion sessions from home if he is unable to get out. The member has since expressed an interest in a smartphone, which we have now given him, and he is getting used to using.”
Ant Warren, Digital Officer, Out Together
Outcomes for members
To date, Out Together have supported 45 of their members to build digital skills and confidence, and provided some with the gift of a smartphone, tablet, or Amazon Echo smart speaker. Members have used their devices and newfound digital skills and confidence to connect with each other and the wider LGBTQ+ community, reducing social isolation. They have also learned how to use digital and the internet to support their own learning and interests.
“Our oldest learner is a 94-year-old man who had never used a touch screen or smart device before joining our digital skills sessions. He now attends every week, and told us that he enjoys the learning and the opportunity to socialise. He has sight issues due to glaucoma and is better able to see on some days than others. One breakthrough moment was when he learned how to read about specific health conditions on the NHS website, looking up and saying with a big smile ‘I’m now an expert on glaucoma!’”
Ant Warren, Digital Officer, Out Together
Next steps
Out Together are keen to build on the progress they have made with their digital skills group participants and would also like to deliver more hybrid support, including video calling, as they are aware that some of their members are often unable to attend in person.
“Moving forwards, some of the group training will also be able to be conducted online, as members become more comfortable with video-calling. This will enable more people to benefit, as we know there are members who cannot get into Leeds but who would be interested in joining the training.”
Ant Warren, Digital Officer, Out Together
Out Together would also like to increase the support they can deliver in rural communities, through their programme Out in the Country. This community is far more likely to experience isolation and barriers to engaging with digital services.
Out Together has also offered to help another community organisation, BHA For Equality Leeds (Skyline) who provide support services for people living with HIV in Leeds and their partners, families and carers. Skyline has shadowed Out Together digital skills sessions and have gained confidence in their own abilities to be able to deliver digital skills support.
“It was encouraging seeing how a little bit of knowledge goes a long way, once you are explaining it to a group. It felt do-able.”
Fran Webb, BHA For Equality Leeds (Skyline)