Reconnecting People Know How

Understanding, engaging and training citizen researchers 

Throughout 2023, the Binks Hub were engaged in a project with People Know How evaluating their Reconnect service and conducting training with volunteers in community research. 

This project originated with charity People Know How seeking to evaluate their Reconnect service. Following successful funding for a project on digital inclusion, the Binks Hub partnered with People Know How to begin looking at their digital inclusion work.

People Know How ran a service called Reconnect which supported adults and families to help improve their wellbeing by increasing digital and social inclusion. As part of this service, they completed baseline and impact questionnaires to find out exactly what people needed and wanted from the service. These questionnaires were then compared with existing literature and shared with other organisations to ensure that different services in Edinburgh complemented rather than competed with each other.

But while baseline and impact questionnaires are great for providing the broad brush strokes of why someone might engage with a service, an interview offers more depth. The Binks Hub provided training and support for a group of People Know How’s volunteers on how to approach conducting their own research interviews and focus groups.

The four areas People Know How targeted were:

  • How people came to People Know How’s Reconnect service 
  • How the service helped them (including skills, knowledge, confidence and emotional support)
  • The difference digital inclusion could make to solving financial challenges and saving money
  • What more the service could offer to make a bigger impact on digital exclusion.

To help answer these questions, volunteers at People Know How participated in training workshops with the Binks Hub and Reconnect teams in how to conduct interviews and run focus groups. They then collaborated with the charity’s Digital & Wellbeing Coordinators to agree which approach would work best and who might be interested in participating.

This project was funded through the Good Things Foundation’s Digital Inclusion Capability Grants scheme.

Want to share your research via the Binks Hub?

If you've got an idea for a research project – or are already working on a research project – which you'd like to talk to the Binks Hub about, please just send us an email. We'd love to hear from you.