Digital Skills Innovation Fund

 

Digital Skills Innovation Fund – The Lancashire Digital Skills partnership is just one of four regions in the UK to have secured over £250,000 of investment from the Government’s £1 million Digital Skills Innovation Fund (DSIF). The funding, from the department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), is specifically aimed at helping people underrepresented within the Lancashire digital workforce gain more sector specific skills and boost their employability.

The programme will be driven by a range of grass roots initiatives including digital skills ‘bootcamps’, special events, workshops and courses. Advisers will also sign-post people interested in developing more digital skills to training programmes already available in Lancashire. Programmes include:

IT-Ready

CompTIA – The Computing Technology Industry Association  CompTIA have successfully run IT-Ready programmes in the USA and we are pleased that the first UK courses are in Lancashire.

IT-Ready is a training programme that covers a technical computer curriculum geared toward the CompTIA A+ certification and professional skills to ensure long-term career success. Students are then placed with employers to gain work experience and potentially an offer of a permanent position.

IT-Ready is for:

  • lower income adults due to unemployment or underemployment
  • displaced workers whose skill sets are no longer in high demand
  • groups under-represented in the ranks of IT workers, such as women, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities
  • ex-armed services or those preparing to transition out of the Armed Forces and their families

For further information click here. Watch this space for case studies about are fabulous participants – coming soon.

At present, there are no more applications being taken for this programme.

Digital Marketer

North Lancs Training Group offer Digital Marketeer

The course teaches skills on developing, designing and delivering a basic website using WordPress as a catalyst towards further learning or employment in the digital industry.

This project is for:

  • people out of the labour market
  • residents in economically deprived areas
  • people with disabilities
  • minority backgrounds
  • lone parents

Clockwork City

Digital Skills for Business Women and Entrepreneurs.

Training aimed at increasing the profitability of local businesses owned and/or managed by women through more effective use of social media. Two courses in Lancaster and Skelmersdale have taken place face to face with excellent feedback. Due to the Covid-19 situation, we have run a further two cohorts via Zoom focusing on businesses in the Central Lancashire area and Lancaster and Wyre.

Participants from the first cohort said:

The training was brilliant very informative and relevant to my business. Delivered with so much positivity and enthusiasm. Extremely engaging. Highly recommend – Julia Banks-Lyon, Banks Lyons Shoes, Lancaster.

The delivery was friendly, inclusive, clear and succinct and I felt it was aimed at practical implementations rather than theoretical marketing, generic catch-all cliches and associated jargon. Tiffany Moore & Amanda Parkinson, Renes Fashion, Lancaster.

Most useful aspects of training for me was sharing with the group, looking at case studies and discussing with the group. I’m looking to improve our website, social media, Instagram and google ranking as a result of the course. Jennifer Burnett, Skelmersdale Shopping Concourse