Digital support for care experienced young people

Digital support for care experienced young people

The council's Employment and Skills team, part of the Knowsley Works service, is supporting 46 care experienced young people to get online by providing equipment and digital support.

This project is thanks to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority funding a Digital Inclusion Targeted Offer for care experienced young people as part of the Youth Guarantee.

The projects includes half a day of digital skills training, a Surface Pro device with Windows 11 and 40gb of data each month.

Care Experienced People are children and young people who are aged 25 and under who have been looked after by the local authority - the Council is their corporate parent.

Cllr David Lonergan, Cabinet Member for Children's Services, said "Like any parent, we want the very best for our Care Experienced Young People, helping them with their transition from our care to independence.

"Have digital access opens up so many opportunities for them, being able to access services and support online and it's great that we've been able to support a number of our Care Experienced People to get digitally connected."

Cllr Tony Brennan, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Economic Development, added "Being online creates a range of new opportunities - whether it's around employment and training, managing your money online, changing your shopping habits or socialising - the opportunities to be connected whilst being at home are endless.

"It's really important that we support our residents, and particularly our care experienced young people, to be able to access these opportunities by tackling the barriers they face, such as not having access to a device or broadband.

"Through the Digital Inclusion Initiative, the key barriers are being removed, providing more care experienced young people to be online."