In February one of my team will be delivering a social media training session for a group of Foster Carers.
Now this isn’t a group of people who would have been on my target list for training from my team, however thinking about the needs of the group and the issues and challenges they have to face, it seems an obvious choice.
These are not DCC employees, they are Foster Carers who have asked for support and advice from our Foster Care team around the social web and the web in general.
This is a really interesting area as one of the main areas of focus the group want to find out about is eSafety.
We are not eSafety experts, nor in fact do we claim to be, however we will be signposting them to the excellent online resource and content from “think you know“.
We will of course share our learning from this session after the event, although has anyone else in #localgov done any training for foster carers and if so how did it go? I’d be very interested in hearing your views.
Jan 17, 2012 @ 09:11:02
Good stuff, Carl. As the use of digital channels gets more mainstream there’s going to be a stack of interesting things in more sensitive areas. Social care and fostering included.
We’ve a quietly thriving Yammer reserved for foster carers in Walsall that’s doing quite well (and a big up to Ian Morton-Jones for thinking of this.)
People seem to quite like the functionality and the fact there can be a walled garden around it. It’s not just the Big Issues it’s used for. It’s useful for the house-keeping and day to day things.
Jan 17, 2012 @ 11:23:30
Hi Carl, we have a real hub of activities for foster carers on Yammer here in Monmouthshire and we showed them how it worked and what they could get out of it before we started (case study here http://helenreynolds.posterous.com/social-media-for-social-care-how-monmouthshir). Foster carers blew me away with enthusiasm and a lack of cynicism and have picked it up a treat. I think when people can see a real application for how it can make a difference to their lives or work, that’s when training becomes simple and easy.
Love your blogging by the way, thanks
Jan 17, 2012 @ 12:59:11
Excellent Stuff – Thank you Helen…very much appreciated
Jan 19, 2012 @ 17:21:18
Hi,
I have done and do training on social networking with carers and residential staff. as for carers it is a mixed bag of if there is a group request and venue then that is fine as well as attending support groups on request. I am CEOP ambassador trained and what I deliver to carers is the Parents presentation with a little of the education part included and then tailored it to the carers we deal with here and make it relevant as possible. the response has always been fantastic, and initiates great discussions and enthusiasm for more and encourages them to even create their own facebook pages. the main objective is to give them a good overview of the benefits and pitfalls and point them directly to “ThinkUknow” a fabulous resource for anyone wanting to know more and a couple of other places. If they say they don’t know much about computers the BBC has a great resource also for this purpose. I have not really had a negative response so far to the training so far! Everyone is different with different levels of knowledge about it all so you have to be prepared to cover as much as possible.
Marion boyle IT Development Officer (Looked After children) City of Edinburgh Council
Jan 19, 2012 @ 18:11:31
Thank you very much for your comments and feedback.
I’m looking forward to hearing how It goes. I got an email today asking for more and we haven’t even done the first one yet!