Leeds is an Age-friendly Community that aims to be the best city to grow old in: a place where people of all ages are healthy, active, included and respected. Each local area of Leeds is served by a Neighbourhood Network that promotes the independence, health and wellbeing of older residents through a range of services and activities.
When the COVID-19 lockdown was announced, Neighbourhood Networks had to close their doors to members. Since then their staff and volunteers have been finding innovative ways to support members, including phone calls to check on wellbeing and deliveries of food, medication, and activity packs.
Cross Gates & District Good Neighbours’ Scheme CIO is a Neighbourhood Network on the edge of east Leeds with around 1,200 members, most aged over 60. Cross Gates took steps to move some of its services and activities online, with the support of the 100% Digital Leeds programme from Leeds City Council and decided to use Zoom.
They soon faced a challenge: most of their members who wanted to join in had never been on a video call before, so there was an immediate training need. But Cross Gates found that they could train remotely and get their members set up on Zoom as long as the person concerned had the necessary hardware: either a smartphone, a tablet, or a laptop with a camera. Cross Gates staff wrote instructions for using Zoom that they thought people could use to get into the call, but that didn’t work too well and they realised they needed to provide one-to-one training. The Cross Gates Digital Inclusion Worker booked a call with each interested member and trained them over the phone to download Zoom and join a video call. Each training session took around 20 minutes and gave members, even those with only basic digital skills, the ability and confidence to use Zoom.
The virtual sessions began with a coffee morning on 25 March attended by four members. In the first week 22 members received training and attended at least two sessions, and more people were booked in for training in the following week. Getting the hang of using the equipment caused a lot of laughter as many ears and chins were shown on screens.