Invitation to tender
Design and digital support for Reading Friends
The Reading Agency
1 February 2018
Invitation to tender
Context and overview
The Reading Agency
Our mission
We are a charity whose mission is to inspire more people to read more, encourage them to share their enjoyment of reading and celebrate the difference that reading makes to all our lives.
Our strapline is: “Because everything changes when we read.”
Our values
· Collaborative
· Empowering
· Creative
· Committed
· Influential
Our approach
Reading can raise spirits, fire imagination, and enable people to manage their lives and engage with their communities. We believe that everything changes when we read, so we specialise in helping people to enjoy reading and encouraging them to share their own pleasure in reading with others.
We work with people of all ages – adults and families as well as children and young people. This includes lapsed readers, reluctant readers and those who struggle with reading as well as passionate readers who want to share their enjoyment of reading with others.
Over 1.4 million people from across the UK take part in our reading programmes every year. We have set ourselves ambitious targets for the future because we know what a difference reading can make to people’s lives and that there is an increasing demand for the work that we do and the volunteering opportunities we provide.
www.readingagency.org.uk
Reading Friends
Loneliness and social isolation is a significant health and wellbeing issue for older people[1]. 8-10% of people aged 65 and older are often or always lonely, while 12% feel socially isolated.
The Alzheimer’s Society estimates that there are 850,000 people in the UK living with dementia and that this number will grow to one million by 2025[2]. In addition, the lives of 21 million people are touched by knowing someone with dementia and there are over half a million people caring for people with the condition in England. A staggering one in three people can expect to care for someone with dementia during their lifetime.
Reading Friends starts conversations through reading to connect older people and reduce isolation and loneliness. Driven by individual interests and needs, it will bring friendships and stronger social networks to everyone involved, including people with dementia and carers. Reading Friends is UK-wide, but locally delivered by public libraries as well as community and voluntary sector organisations. Reading Friends is funded by the Big Lottery Fund.
This is a new and unique project for The Reading Agency and an opportunity for the design agency to be involved in developing an evolving programme. Co-creation and empowerment is at the heart of our project and we expect the design approach to work within these principles as well. Reading Friends aims:
· To provide richer social connections and greater cultural engagement for older people through creating opportunities to participate in reading activities
· To empower older people through their ownership, co-production and influence in the shaping and delivery of the Reading Friends model
· To promote happiness, social connectedness and engagement by involving older people in reading activities they have helped to develop
· Through the above, to improve health and wellbeing
· To embed reading interventions in national and local approaches to caring for an ageing population
The Reading Friends model focuses on shared reading powered by the social activism of participants and volunteers. It uses a befriending model in which volunteer ‘Reading Partners’ support the target audience (Reading Friends) either one-to-one or in groups. The materials we are currently using to help volunteers understand and participate in Reading Friends are attached with this brief to give more details about the project. These materials will need to be updated as outlined in this brief.
We currently have six test projects in operation over eight sites in England, Wales and Scotland. They are:
· Stirling Library Service
· Newcastle Library Service & Age UK Newcastle
· Oldham Library Service & Springboard Carers Network
· Sheffield Dementia Alliance & Sheffield Library Service
· Conwy Library Service
· A loose partnership of three organisations in West Sussex supported by West Sussex Library Service. They are: Abbeyfield Society (Horsted Keynes), Age UK Horsham and Dementia Support (Chichester).
In September 2018 there will be a national launch of the Reading Friends programme and we will be announcing up to 10 new projects across the UK, which will mean Reading Friends is operating in 16+ locations.
We are operating devolved project management in Scotland and Wales. Scottish Book Trust is our partner delivery organisation in Scotland and Literature Wales is our partner in Wales. They will also be managing older people’s advisory structures in these nations and we expect that there may be different design requirements in some materials for these nations.
Northern Ireland came on-stream in February 2018 with projects starting during the pilot phase of the programme in September 2018. Verbal Arts is our partner to develop the project in Northern Ireland.
Target audience
There are three main audiences:
i) Participating organisations who co-ordinate the programme locally
ii) volunteers (“Reading Partners”)
iii) participants (“Reading Friends”)
Partner organisations
Partner organisations facilitate access to the Reading Friends programme for vulnerable and isolated older people who may not otherwise be able to find out about it or participate in it. They work to raise awareness of Reading Friends in their networks and encourage participation. They may provide volunteer capacity from among their own workforce and networks, particularly where the programme engages older people in residential and care homes or sheltered accommodation where other volunteers may not be able to access.
Partner organisations may also work with older people to set up supported reading activities, using the resources and training materials provided by The Reading Agency, where the audience is particularly vulnerable or it is not feasible for members of the local community to engage the participants e.g. in high dependency care homes.
Each partner organisation is developing their offer in response to the needs of the local community and the Reading Friends they are working with. At this stage various methods of engagement are being tested, including one-to-one sessions and group meetings.
· Communications requirements:
o Information about The Reading Agency and its work
o Resources to attract, retain and support volunteers
o Resources to raise awareness and attract Reading Friends
o Induction materials, tips and ‘how to’ sheets both for co-ordinating roles and for on the ground volunteer roles
o Possible opportunities for networking
Volunteers or “Reading Partners”
A Reading Partner is a volunteer/facilitator role focused on encouraging lonely and isolated people to become a Reading Friend, supporting them with reading activities and to engage with a wider reading community. Reading Partners can be drawn from the local community or from partner organisations and will use the resources and activities supplied to support vulnerable older people to participate in reading activities and engage in the Reading Friends network. The aim is to empower older people to progress to Reading Partner where possible, moving on to inspire others to engage with reading.
Reading Friends is built upon the concept of active engagement of people in a supported reading network both as Friends (active participants) and Partners (facilitators). Friends will be supported to become active Partners and to encourage others to take part. Data from the 2014-15 Community Life Survey shows that 37% of people aged 65-74 had volunteered informally in the last month and 33% had volunteered formally in the last month. People in this age group also gave the largest amount of time to regular volunteering of any age group other than those aged 16-25. However, we are also interested in the intergenerational possibilities of Reading Friends and the potential benefits to other age groups of participating in this project.
Consultation has flagged this as a potentially important strand of activity and we may engage young volunteers as well as older people, for example through our existing Reading Hack programme.
· Communications requirements
o Information to explain the project and how they can get involved
o Induction information to prepare them for their role, including online training
o Tips and ‘how to’ sheets to support them in their volunteering
o Regular information and ideas to refresh their activities
Participants or “Reading Friends”
The main target of this programme will be “vulnerable older people”, this includes:
o Isolated older people, including people living in sheltered housing and care home
o People with dementia
o Same generation carers of older people
· Communications requirements:
From our research we do not think that Reading Friends will need specific resources from the Reading Friends programme to participate in the sessions. However, the posters and leaflets need to make Reading Friends appealing to the target audience and the brand identity needs to feel engaging and inclusive.
Project timetable
The project funding commenced in September 2016 and we are currently in the test phase of the project. Below is a summary of the project phasing:
Timescale / Phase / Project activitiesSeptember 2016-June 2017 / Planning and set up / · Co-creation of materials and approach
· Selection of test projects
June 2017-August 2018 / Testing and development / · Testing Reading Friends concept in 6 sites in England, Scotland and Wales, each with bespoke approaches for their audiences
September 2018-August 2019 / Pilot / · Selection and refinement of approaches for pilot
· Pilot of selected approaches from test projects in 10 sites across UK
September 2019-August 2020 / Rollout / · Rollout of Reading Friends programme – possibly with 20 projects although this may be wider depending on demand in the sector
Design brief
The successful agency will be required to support the Reading Friends project with design and digital development to support the overall communications strategy.
Revised design and development of project materials
We have developed our initial design materials in close co-operation with our older people’s steering group and advisory group. Those materials have been tested and we have feedback and learning from that process that we can share. In addition, we will be consulting with representatives from each of the test projects at an event on Thursday 8 March 2018, which we will require the successful agency to attend. The event will be held at the Free Word Centre, London EC1R 3GA.
We are looking to build on the learning from the first phase design to develop our materials for the next phase of the project. In particular we want:
· Consideration of the existing materials and how they can be optimised following feedback
· Collaboration with project co-ordinators in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to ensure that Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh needs are met
· Support to ensure that all text effectively communicates key messages and works with the design to reinforce those messages – this includes copywriting support to edit the text in our volunteer pack, on posters and leaflets to maximise impact
· Consideration of how the materials can appeal to broader audiences, including young people, as we extend our work into intergenerational volunteering
· Images of materials for promotional purposes
· Development of a creative idea that is upbeat, engaging and can provide a design platform for further development of the project.
o Ideally we’d like to have a ‘bible’ of principles and templates to work from in designing new material that helps us ensure anything else we develop fits with these principles. We worked with our co-creation group to develop agreed principles for Reading Friends which could help this process – they are attached with this brief.
o We need to bear in mind that we might move some/all of these resources online behind a paywall or authentication process at some point and so the design approach needs to be able to be adapted for HTML and other content.
Digital development
Reading Friends also needs to develop a digital presence that shares the overall ‘look and feel’ of the materials. This will include:
· A website to promote the project which can be easily searched for project information and volunteering opportunities
· A secure platform for projects to communicate, to share information such as best practice and challenges
· An online training portal to support the current face-to-face induction sessions which will be accessed via a paywall or authentication process
· Fundraising capability to process donations to the project
· A sign-up function to allow registrations to receive project information
· Capability to share stories to show the impact of the project
· Capability to post news and blogs
· The potential for future development and expansion.
We have commissioned a report to provide a clear picture of the digital opportunities and challenges, which is attached with this brief.
We will work in effective partnership with our design partner, including check-and-challenge of our ideas, mutually supportive work with delivery partners in the nations and a shared priority for co-production and empowerment of our participants and audiences.
All digital and design materials will need to be ready for the launch of the project’s pilot phase in September 2018. We will plan and agree a timetable with the successful agency.
Technical specifications
In general, we also expect any design materials to adhere to the guidelines published by one of our project partners, the Dementia Engagement and Empowerment Partnership (DEEP) about principles of design for people with dementia:
http://dementiavoices.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DEEP-Guide-Creating-websites.pdf
http://dementiavoices.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DEEP-Guide-Writing-dementia-friendly-information.pdf
Branding
All design material will also need to fit within The Reading Agency’s visual identity guidelines (attached) and incorporate the key messages for both The Reading Agency and Reading Friends.
It will be important to understand how the brand identity can be used on different treatments, including: website/s, widgets, posters, leaflets and other publicity collateral.
Design challenges