What I like most are the stories

What I like most are the stories, the little personal touches that bring out how an individual has been affected by what we do. That remains the best part of the Get Connected project, something that was a major part of my working life over the last two years.

Get Connected was a programme run by the Social Care Institute of Excellence that distributed £12m of DoH funds to more than 1,200 providers of adult care services in England. Its aim was to kick start the introduction of IT into adult care settings (both residential and nursing home, domiciliary care, and other projects) for the benefit of residents and staff  - staff in this sector often don’t have access to IT outside of the workplace either.

The reasons for doing this were twofold. Firstly to improve the quality of life for those in care through the same things that everyone else enjoys about the social side of computing – emailing friends and family, seeing what people are doing on Facebook, Skyping relations in other countries, looking up things that particularly interest you. Secondly, to give staff access to the wealth of online learning tools that SCIE has been encouraging the development of.

The programme was delivered through a partnership between SCIE, LASA and ourselves at CTT. I’ll talk about that partnership in another post. But here I want to share a couple of the comments and stories that have come back from the care providers.

One of the favourites of everyone involved in the project was the ninety-four year old lady who was too frail to travel to her son’s wedding. So the bridal party rigged up a webcam and she watched in live via Skype. We have a lovely photo (which I can’t share) of her dressed in her finest, hat and all, watching the ceremony with a huge smile on her face.

Another one I particularly like is the quote from an eighty-four year old man:

“Technology has opened up the tree of knowledge that I thought would never be opened up again which is something that I am very happy about. When I eventually get proficient in using a computer, it will be more than your life is worth to take it away from me! It is my true companion.”

It’s easy to get lost in the day to day issues of running the donation programmes and trying to help non-profits (including CTT) operate more effectively better through IT. But every so often being reminded that simply giving someone access to a computer and the internet can change their lives for the better, whether they are nine or ninety-nine, always brings me back to why I do what I do and makes all the hassles worthwhile.