Video storytelling for Together Co
A video storytelling training programme to get Together Co volunteers up and running quickly during the unprecedented demand of the Covid-19 lockdown.
The challenge
Caring in the age of Covid
The Covid-19 pandemic forced massive changes in terms of how we all live. However, for people already struggling with isolation and for organizations that rely on face to face contact, these challenges proved even harder to overcome.
As a direct result of the pandemic, Together Co experienced a huge surge in demand for their services, with a year’s worth of referrals received in the first four months of 2020, as well as a surge in volunteers. As the charity was restricted to telephone befriending and facing a high volume of doorstep deliveries, it needed to significantly change the way it delivered support to local people, while training up over 100 volunteers at speed on how to operate safely and effectively.
Getting new volunteers up-and-running via 1-2-1 web or phone calls was too time-consuming in a crisis and attempts to deliver training via Zoom were unsuccessful – synchronising timings was difficult and many volunteers missed their slots.
The solution
Using StoryTagger, a video storytelling tool for business and education, Together Co staff created twelve bite-sized training videos conveying vital information for volunteers to watch. Mindtools Kineo aggregated these videos into a digital training programme which included additional written and visual information and a quiz to check understanding.
The deliberate simplicity of the solution’s approach allowed all parties to react and deliver swiftly – critical given the urgency of the situation.
Face-to-face sessions weren’t possible during lockdown, and calls were difficult to schedule with volunteers
StoryTagger enabled Together Co’s trainers to film themselves delivering the training from the comfort of their homes without the need for a film crew. A tailored story framework and prompts were designed in the app to enable staff to record a broad range of topics in a structured way.
When pulled together with a variety of other assets by Mindtools Kineo and hosted on their learning platform, the resulting training programme was made available for volunteers to complete in their own time, whenever they wanted. This solution was scalable, with a single set of videos available online to all volunteers.
Showing and validating volunteers had sufficient training to go and help others
Mindtools Kineo created an interactive quiz for volunteers, testing and validating their understanding of the training information.
The results were available for Together Co to follow up with volunteers who needed clarification about what they could and couldn’t do during the pandemic.
Deliver scalability to help other support groups and charities deliver the same impact
The videos were set up as a playlist on YouTube, accessible not only to Together Co’s volunteers but also to loneliness charities across the UK.
Mindtools Kineo supported the videos with additional information, an interactive quiz and an online learning platform to test that volunteers were support ready.
The results
By taking control of their own digital training Together Co safeguarded the health and safety of their volunteers and customers, increased the speed with which they could deliver their services and developed new ways of working that will help them to continue improving in the future.
Combining the agility of on-point, purpose-led selfie videos and robustness of a managed platform to test understanding meant 150 new volunteers were trained in half the usual time to an extremely high standard. Over a third of these completed training in the first month of the lockdown, ready to respond to people in need immediately.
Together Co were thus able to respond to the immediate needs of the community; training and inducting volunteers to deliver vital services in very challenging circumstances.
The project was also shortlisted for the ‘Best UK Public and Non-Profit Sector’ project award at the international Learning Technologies Awards in London.
