‘Leicestershire CareOnLine’ Julia’s story 2010. Julia is 56 and lives alone. She has learning difficulties and lost her job over 2 years ago. Julia became very low, lost her confidence and felt very isolated as her sister lives in the USA and her daughters are away at college. Julia had no computer experience and admitted being “quite frightened” of them. Breaking the Barriers (Leicestershire Adult Social Care service helping people with disabilities gain new skills and find work) referred Julia to CareOnLine to see if they could help.
Following an assessment of need, CareOnLine provided Julia with a Laptop and helped with accessing the internet and email. The CareOnLine Training Officer visited regularly to encourage her to gain confidence and new skills. Working with CareOnLine, Breaking the Barriers and Leicestershire Adult learning Service, Julia found specialist courses on confidence-building, literacy and numeracy and employability. Julia has subsequently passed computer and Adult Literacy courses using the computer to access internet learning and complete her course work.
Julia now works as a volunteer in her local Library twice a week and is actively looking for a new job. Since mastering email Julia is now able to communicate with her family and friends, making her feel less isolated.
Julia says: ‘I was a computer novice. I felt left behind, ignorant and out of touch with the world, now I am much happier, having the computer has given me a new perspective on my life. I feel much more confident and have now bought my own laptop.’
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