The Co-operative College is delighted to announce that it has secured £15,000 worth of additional funding thanks to the Momentum Programme, – part of the Covid-19 Digital Response fund from Catalyst and the National Lottery Community Fund.
Developed in partnership with Passio, an accessibility-focused digital agency based in Edinburgh and London, the tool has been refined and tested over four months.
More than 20 young people took part in in-depth co-design sessions, sharing their thoughts and opinions on how they want to communicate feedback.
The extra funding will allow expansion of the tool right across the College, with the finished version expected to be complete later this summer.
The programme begins immediately and consists of extension funding that will support the College in developing the next stage of the innovative feedback tool.
Having progressed through an initial development programme, the tool has been trialled with participants from the College’s Co-operative (ad)Venture scheme which supports young people with learning difficulties, disabilities and autism.
Daniel Cox, project manager at the College, said: “Making the transition from face to face to online delivery while gathering feedback during the Covid-19 pandemic has been challenging for everyone involved in our projects.
“Making sure we can get open and honest comments from all the young people on our Co-operative (ad)Venture project, in as much detail as possible, is key to developing projects alongside participants that make a real impact. Our work with Passio has enabled us to do just that, and more. We’re looking forward to continuing the partnership over the coming weeks and can’t wait to see the finished product.”
Debby Mulling, strategic partnerships manager at Catalyst, said: “”It has been wonderful to see educators like the Co-operative College put so much value on participatory design, ensuring their students have a voice in shaping their own education.
“Through our Covid-19 Digital Response Development programme, we have been able to support them to develop a tool that enables young people with learning difficulties, disabilities and autism to feed back on the learning activities they participated in.
“We are excited to see how the Co-operative College will evolve this tool further over the summer through extension funding from our Momentum programme to benefit their students and other organisations keen to embed it within their own activities.”
Chris Wait at Passio said: “We’ve loved working on this project – it’s been a fantastic opportunity to run co-design sessions with staff, coaches and students. Passio are thrilled to have helped the College collect feedback and improve their courses with the added challenge of everything going remote.”
All outputs from the programme will be made open to the wider charity sector, with more information on the programme available via the College’s website.
