Include-IT Mersey Project Details

Background

Include-IT Mersey provides basic digital skills training and inclusion support to digitally excluded residents of the Liverpool City Region (LCR).  Delivered across all 6 LCR boroughs, the partnership brings together organisations from the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) sector to support people in their local communities to develop basic IT skills and get online.  The project is managed by Sefton CVS as Accountable Body, in partnership with VOLA and 10 of its member organisations who deliver community-based digital skills training.

Originally funded from 2017 to 2023 by the National Lottery Community Fund and European Social Fund, the project has been continued through a UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) grant from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA) until March 2025.

In its original Lottery/ ESF funded phase, the project supported over 2,100 digitally excluded, adult learners to develop basic digital skills and get online, over 52% of whom progressed to work, further training or active job-search, significantly exceeding contractual targets.  Over a thousand further people benefited from the support of our volunteer Digital Champions through who run a network of digital drop-ins.

Through the new, two-year UKSPF-funded phase, we aim to engage and support over 570 more people to develop essential digital skills and get online.

 

Project Summary

 

Include-IT Mersey provides personalised, flexible basic digital skills and inclusion support to digitally excluded residents of the Liverpool City Region (LCR) to improve their Essential Digital Skills, motivation, confidence, trust of and access to digital technologies.

 

To be eligible for support through the project, people need to:

  • Live in the Liverpool City Region (Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens or Wirral)
  • Be aged 16+
  • Lack Essential Digital Skills

Our core delivery model involves:

  1. Identification, referral and engagement, through community organisations, Housing Associations, Job Centres and outreach activity across the LCR;
  2. Volunteer Digital Champions for localised community engagement and support;
  3. Localised delivery through a network of Delivery Partners, outreach community venues and Housing Associations, in communities with a high prevalence of digital exclusion;
  4. Use of Learn My Way as the primary learning platform, supported by other digital skills resources.  Learn My Way is a good learning tool as it enables learners to both choose topics of personal interest and to continue learning outside supervised sessions.
  5. Small group sizes, delivered by qualified, experienced staff, to ensure that learners receive the required level of support to enable them to learn at their own pace;
  6. Employability support, for those participants that want and need it;
  7. Advice and guidance on higher level digital skills training (both in-house and through external providers) and public places to get online;
  8. Volunteer-led digital ‘drop-ins’, open to the public for advice and support on use of digital devices.

Key to our delivery model is a focus on individual abilities, needs and aspirations, offering personalised packages of support, for example: by providing digital skills to improve employment prospects, or support focused on accessing health and/or other public services online – in line with the individual learners’ key motivations and needs.

Alongside the provision of formal digital skills courses, we have established a network of volunteer-led Digital Drop-Ins across the city region.  They are informal and open to members of the community for basic advice and support on digital skills and use of digital devices, whether or not they want to go on a formal course.

If you want to find out about courses and digital drop-ins in your area, or you want to explore volunteering as a Digital Champion, please visit the other pages of our website.