Positive Sparks, platform to give voice to isolated or excluded young people

admin on 20 April 2021

Youngsters participating in a face-to-face workshop from the project. Retrieved from Bytes’ website.

Youth participation platform which helps to give a voice to young people who are more isolated or excluded, to express their concerns, needs and opinion on the services offered by the community. The platform uses “Machine Learning” to analyse and interpret young people’s responses in a fast and automatic way.

In addition to empowering the most excluded young people and facilitating their participation, Positive Sparks allows social services and organisations working with young people with difficulties (mental health, drug abuse, school drop-out, etc.) to detect deficiencies in services, improve their interventions and identify new needs requiring new responses or services. The platform also offers the Public Administrations to use Positive Sparks for the development of youth-related public policies.

Within this initiative, more specific projects have emerged, such as Rural Sparks, which helps to give a voice to young people with difficulties in rural areas. On the other hand, Positive Sparks is not only a virtual platform, but also organizes workshops and presence activities to better meet young participants and to interact with them at first hand. Workshops are imparted by the Bytes organization in collaboration with other organizations, teaching centres, etc. It is currently a tool only available in English.

Characteristics of innovation

Adolescence and youth, Bank of innovations, Fully inclusive cities, Group intervention, Information and planning, Lab, Link with the community, New service, New technological tool, Poverty and exclusion, Prediction and prevention, User empowerment

Location

Northern Ireland

Partners/Funders

National Lottery Community Fund, Epic CIC.

Genesis

The first prototype started in Belfast in 2018, under the name “Voices for Impact”. It has now spread beyond Northern Ireland to Ireland, the United Kingdom and some other countries.

Level of implementation

Fins ara hi ha participat més de 1200 de joves amb dificultats d’Irlanda del Nord i altres llocs, tant d’àrees urbanes com rurals.

Further information

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DigiContact, remote and immediate social care service available 24h

admin on 13 April 2021

DigiContact worker attending a client. Retrieved from the DigiContact website

Remote and immediate 24h care service for people with long-term care needs: disabled people, elderly people with dependency, people with mental health problems or addictions, etc. The service allows extra respite and support to these people’s non-professional carers, avoiding their saturation, and also offers them support if needed. Users can enrol in the service either individually or through social entities. The service adapts to the needs of each user (for example, calling to remind him of a medication, wake him up in the morning, etc.) according to what is established at the time of contracting the service; and, depending on the needs of the person, DigiContact complements online care with presence visits.

DigiContact works through an app that is very easy to use: only by pressing a button it does the call (with image) to be able to receive remote support and attention. The camera is located in the middle of the screen, making it easier to have a sense of proximity and making it possible for professionals to read the verbal and nonverbal signals of the user.

Professionals working in DigiContact (psychologists, nurses, social workers…) have a specialized training to meet all kinds of needs users can have online.

The DigiContact service has proved especially useful during the lockdown times of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is currently a service only available in Dutch.