DigitalMe goes to Parliament
What a week! The Digital Voice team has been enjoying a collaborative, national celebration of all things digital as one of the guest speakers at the Public Sector Innovation Week and, as if that wasn’t enough, we were also invited to parliament in recognition of our recent Gold Award in the National Social Work Awards! Hold on to your cream teas, while we tell you what we’ve been up to.
At the close of last year, we were delighted to be nominated in the Digital Transformation in Social Work Award category, for two of our pioneering DigitalMe projects which were commissioned by Gateshead Council’s Youth Justice Service and Domestic Violence teams. We were even more delighted to win! This week Julie Nicholson, our co-founder and Managing Director, was invited to Westminster to an event with MPs and ministers to recognise all of the hard work happening across the social work sector. Winners from all categories were invited and the event was really inspirational with a focus on the importance of early prevention which is close to our hearts.
Julie reflects on our success:
“I first set up Digital Voice to give a voice to individuals and groups who are digitally excluded and now, sixteen years on, that is still our mission. The fact that these DigitalMe films are being recognised on a national stage and making a tangible difference is the real reward; these young people have a story to tell and we should all be listening.”
Julie, alongside Rachel Lacey, Deputy Youth Justice Team Manager, Gateshead Council were then guest speakers at the Public Sector Innovation Week, a series of events dedicated to advancing innovation across the sector in the UK, bringing together talks from leaders, innovators, and change-makers to drive progress and shape the future of public services.
Julie and Rachel talked about the process of making the award-winning films as well as the council’s plans to make four more DigitalMe films this year: you can see their presentation here:
“I’m so pleased to continue this work with the council, it demonstrates their commitment to trauma informed response and the power of listening, really listening, to people’s experiences and then turning that into action. The films we made for both the youth justice service and the domestic abuse team are already enabling partners and decision makers across the sector the opportunity to understand the lived experience of young people and crucially, what interventions have helped them best .”
- Julie
If you think a DigitalMe could help your service users tell their stories, we’d love to hear from you!