Internet skills surgery in safe and effective use of social media for careers development

Last week, I posted a draft idea for Internet safety surgeries.

I had some good comments from people, including a chance to chat with Tim Davies and Neal Parsons from Young Scot . I thought that it would be a good idea to create a new post that reflects where we are now with this idea.

I've roped in Edinburgh Napier's Community Engagement team: I found that they were working on a similar idea.

We've also got a name: Online Ambition: Using the internet to find a job - safely and effectively

We  are going to pilot something like an Internet Skills Surgery in Safe and Effective Use of Social Media for Careers Development. The pilot, a one evening workshop, will take place in Edinburgh, in April (Monday 11th April) , under the Youth Work Online Month of Action  umbrella. Young people, parents and social media and internet safety experts will come together in a skill swap session: those looking for support will team up with those holding relevant skills and work together, on computers, to look at tasks and resources. Groups would work in 2s or 3s according to skills and interest.

The model for the pilot is the series of Edinbuzz Social Media Surgeries (and similar elsewhere) and the Tim's skill swap technique.

Many people, both young people and parents (and neither) are becoming aware that their online profile is important when looking for work (or applying for college etc) and would welcome advice on this. This advice is likely to be helpful in supporting people's social media  at all levels -i.e. whether they are always on Facebook or only use the Internet to look things up and shop.

This is what we have so far:

• an idea, a date (Monday 11th April), a method, the Youth Work Online Month as a home.
• People-wise, we have me and, all being well, we'll have Tim. Hopefully someone from Young Scot -possibly CEOP trained. I'll also get in touch with folk that have expressed an interest.

This is what we need next:

• a venue -place that we can bring in people to use computers on a Monday evening in Edinburgh. Leslie mentioned public libraries. The Napier team are helping out, but any suggestions in central edinburgh welcome.
• Experts -people who can advice on using social media (safely and effectively) for career development.
•  Publicity
• Depending on the venue, some sponsorship would be good to pay for coffee, crisps, juice (to be consumed away from the computers of course!)

It's a one-off event that could hopefully be copied/improved etc

What do you think?

Either post a comment here or email Ella if you want to get involved: e.taylor-smith@napier.ac.uk