By Jess Ettridge, Connect 21 Facilitator – Strategic Improvement Team, Tenancy Super Guru

Housing 21 is a leading not-for-profit provider of retirement living and extra care for older people of modest means. We operate in 240 local authority areas across England, managing over 23,300 retirement living and extra care properties, and providing over 48,000 hours of social care each week.

Transform 21 is our strategy for making it easy for residents, employees and other stakeholders to do business with us. As part of the Transform 21 strategy, Housing 21 is piloting the use of smart technologies across retirement living and extra care schemes. The pilot is called Connect 21.

The pilot supplying communal smart technologies is the first project of its kind at Housing 21, giving 53 retirement living and extra care schemes access to Wi-Fi infrastructure and a smart TV in communal areas, which also adapts as a digital notice board using software in a web browser, including Teams Rooms conferencing (currently available at four of the 53 schemes).

Through Connect 21 we found that digital inclusion means making sure everyone can benefit from using the internet and technology; that digital inclusion is a social issue; and that a lack of access can have a negative impact on a person’s life.

Connect 21 has highlighted to the organisation just how much we rely on our computers, smart phones and tablets more each day. We use the internet for everything from socialising to shopping, and not everyone is able to access the internet, with many being left behind.

A breakdown of the initiatives of Connect 21

Communal Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi infrastructure in our retirement living schemes to match the services in extra care. Giving quality connectivity in communal areas to the scheme’s residents. Ensuring those residents who want to get online have the connectivity to do so.

Smart TV: installation of a smart TV in the communal lounges, where residents can gather socially to watch TV and use the smart TV applications such as YouTube to listen to music and participate in activities such as quizzes and dancing.

Digital content management: using ‘PinToMind’, which is a cloud-based user-friendly software application for digital notice boards where everything happens in a web browser. ‘PinToMind Go’ is a mobile application available for Android and IOS devices. Residents who download this application to their smart device are able to follow their scheme’s digital notice boards wherever, whenever.

Video conferencing: four of the pilot schemes have Teams Rooms conferencing, allowing Teams communication from those schemes. It’s anticipated that this will increase engagement between residents and employees, whilst decreasing travel costs, including time spent on the road, meaning operational managers can engage with more residents in a convenient way.

Through the initiatives, Housing 21 residents are using smart TV applications such as YouTube to interact socially with each other, to participate in movement and well-being classes, and to listen to and learn about new music, while also gathering together to watch popular TV events such as football matches and the Great North run.

Using the pilot initiatives, Housing 21 held their annual retirement living conferences, the first in-person resident event since Covid. The conferences, hosted over eight dates, spanned the length and breadth of the country. As part of the agenda, residents experienced an interactive digital session connecting the conference room to a scheme in Bradford, Avery Tulip Court. Residents at the conference and at the scheme were challenged to a live quiz, which was a lot of fun and well received. The feedback from the conferences has been positive, sparking curiosity and an interest for digital inclusion.

We learnt from evaluation of the pilot that as an organisation we need to do more to support residents and employees to get online, while encouraging motivation and supporting confidence.

Digital engagement at Housing 21 aims to bridge the divide for our digitally-excluded residents and employees, enabling them to become better digitally-included, but always supporting all residents and employees with digital skills, connectivity and accessibility, working through the barriers of digital confidence, motivation, accessibility and understanding. Housing 21 are committed to ensure our residents have access to the same online opportunities as everyone else.

As we continue to ally with the Online Centres Network, Digital Poverty Alliance and other digital inclusion networks and charities, we, as an organisation, can tap into the resources provided by those networks and charities to embed digital engagement at Housing 21, aligning with the Digital Poverty Alliance in offering a minimum digital standard to those who want to be digitally included at Housing 21.

Every day we are venturing further into the digital world, linking with external organisations such as Barclays digital wings and Digital Champions, with several Digital Champions now available to the organisation, and Xyrius education in Greater Manchester, who have been providing digital skills and cyber awareness courses to residents in three of our schemes in Manchester. Residents who complete the course receive a certificate and tablet to continue their digital journey.

We’ve also been successful in bidding for funding opportunities, securing a large amount of funding from Westminster local authority to embed digital inclusion at an extra care scheme in London. We also successfully bid for devices and free data from the Good Things Foundation, receiving 16 laptops and MiFi devices, five tablets and 21 sim cards preloaded with six months of free data. These devices are being used as part of a pilot providing digital skills to older people.

We hope to be successful in our current bid for funding from the Leeds Community Federation, who now include digital inclusion as an activity which can be funded through their ‘stay well this winter grant’. 100% Digital Leeds have supported this application, which if successful will benefit digital inclusion for residents living in the community at Box Tree Court. We hope to continue working with 100% Digital Leeds, together supporting Housing 21 residents living in Leeds and the surrounding areas to become digitally included.

The organisation is starting to be involved in far more digital and Wi-Fi-related initiatives, and it’s imperative that we approach these in a joined up and consistent way.

We’re therefore in the process of developing a digital inclusivity strategy. This strategy will capture what’s currently being undertaken as well as setting out the future direction of digital and digital inclusivity across the organisation.

Our aim is to achieve digital inclusivity by 2030, in line with the Digital Poverty Alliance’s national delivery plan.