Neighbourhood Houses Barwon:

Digital mentors/guides in the community

volunteers across our region, addressing digital exclusion

Volunteer Digital Mentors

Digital Mentor - what's it all about?

We’re helping volunteers around the community become digital mentors or guides.

 

These digital guides are get-online champions – helpful individuals providing free advice and guidance so that others can learn how to do whatever it is they need or want to do online.

  • Digital mentor/guide volunteers don’t need to be tech experts
  • Digital mentor/guide volunteers don’t need to be teachers
  • Digital mentor/guide volunteers are not required to make any commitment

This is a project to build community by putting people out there that are happy to inspire and lead others to cross that digital divide, to help them to be confident enough to learn for themselves from the extensive online micro courses available on the BeConnected website (an Australian Government initiative).

You might;

  • run free tech-help social gatherings for seniors at your local Neighbourhood House
  • be part of an existing activity group (eg. craft, bowls, book club)
  • be a resident in a retirement village
  • volunteer at an aged care facility
  • be a social services professional
  • have compassion and empathy for those struggling in the digital world

A digital mentor isn’t expected to provide technical services or be a computer expert, and a digital mentor isn’t expected to be a trained educator. Digital Mentors bring their unique life experiences, skills interests and strengths to their partnerships with learners. You just need a basic understanding of the internet and how to use a range of devices, and if you don’t know how to do something online you’ll have the skills to search for an answer.

Being a digital mentor is more than technical skills. You need:

  • Kindness – Being warm, accepting and caring towards learners and not judging them for their level of knowledge or how quickly they learn
  • Patience – Being willing to stick to something no matter how long it takes, even if it means repeating the same small steps dozens of times
  • Empathy – Being willing to try to imagine what the mentoring experience is like for the learner, including their fears and frustrations
  • Generosity – Being open and honest with learners and giving them your full attention for the duration of the mentoring session
  • Flexibility – being open to changes in learning directions as you e learner’s needs change (switching between topics, activities and devices)
  • Bringing a positive attitude to each mentoring session is the most vital action you can take to support your learners. Your digital mentoring style will evolve over time. Enjoy the Journey.
Drawing depicting mentoring

Community Helping Community

Digital Mentors are there to help and encourage people to learn. This is usually done by exploring a learner’s areas of interest. Some digital mentoring activities present more risk than others. For example, helping someone find their favourite song on YouTube is low risk and doesn’t require sharing any personal information. Other activities like assisting with online banking, accessing MyGov, paying bills or online shopping can put both the learner and the mentor in a higher risk situation. As you explore activities the learner is interested in, you may find yourself in a situation where you are asked to provide advice on matters outside of your area of expertise, like legal or financial matters. It is important for you to set some consistent boundaries to ensure you and your learner feel safe, happy and confident during your sessions together, online and offline.

There are ways of handling these potentially tricky situations that won’t offend or intimidate your learner, or place you in a difficult position. We suggest establishing clear boundaries or rules in your first session about your approach to handling your learner’s personal information (like bank card details and passwords) and having a conversation with your learner or providing written information to learners in advance.

The Digital Mentor Role

It’s important that you and the people you help are aware of the boundaries for a digital mentor. There are plenty of activities and tasks online that involve private and sensitive information – for example, online banking passwords, email account access, medical appointments, Centrelink forms, passport applications… A digital mentor should avoid noting or even seeing such information as much as possible.

You are there to help and encourage people to learn but not do everything for them. You need to be aware of the boundaries and not try and help with things that you may not be qualified on, such as legal, money or health. Similarly, digital mentors are not there to troubleshoot technical issues or fix things that aren’t working.

In addition, a digital mentor is definitely not there to do things for another person; instead, s/he is there to guide that person to do it for themselves.

Do's and Don'ts for Digital Mentors

Digital Skills

As a digital mentor, you’ll want to address 2 categories of digital skills, Foundation and Essential skills

  • Foundation Digital Skills – underpin all essential skills
    eg. turning on a device, opening browsers and finding/using websites, passwords
  • Essential Digital Skills – for work and life
    eg. communicating via email, social media, transactions, problem solving, online safety

You are NOT expected to be an expert in all of these. You WILL be familiar with many of them from your own day-to-day life, and you WILL know where to find resources online in the Be Connected website that learners will use.

Drawing depicting presentation of digital skills
The Be Connected website on various devices.

What is Be Connected?

Be Connected is an Australian government initiative committed to building the confidence, digital skills and online safety of older Australians.

Access these free learning resources online or join one of the thousands of community organisations running free computer groups across Australia.

Find topics and courses that best suit a skill level;

  • Beginner content covers the basics and is best suited for those just starting their digital journey.
  • Intermediate content is for those familiar with the basics of being online who would like to build on their knowledge.
Visit Be Connected