Northwest Center Engages Community, Advances Digital Skills
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Digital Beat
Northwest Center Engages Community, Advances Digital Skills
Following up on the release of The Human Infrastructure of Broadband: Looking Back, Looking Around, and Looking Ahead, we are providing examples of core, complementary, and coalition models for digital equity work. This series of organizational profiles delves deeply into how these programs work, the problems they are best suited to solve, the populations they are best suited to reach, and the support they need to succeed. Learn more about the Human Infrastructure of Broadband Project.
“You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but you have to put work and time into making programs fit your community.”
—Reyna Rodriguez, Digital Learning Program Manager, Northwest Center
Since 2003, the Northwest Center has been working to empower the Chicago neighborhood that the nonprofit calls home, Belmont Cragin, through an expansive array of community-centered programs. Northwest Center’s mission to “identify and respond to the needs of the community” in order to “improve the economic well-being and quality of life” for all community members is deeply reflected in its ongoing initiatives, including financial literacy, health equity, housing counseling, and digital skills classes.
Digital navigation officially became a part of Northwest Center’s programming in 2020. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the organization became involved in the Chicago Connected initiative run by the City of Chicago, an ongoing program working to connect Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students and families to no-cost, high-speed internet service. Out of more than 20 organizations participating in the program, Northwest Center had the largest geographical area to serve, encompassing five communities surrounding Belmont Cragin. As part of the program, Northwest Center collaborated with Kids First Chicago and other participating organizations to conduct a citywide survey on the digital divide. It was then that the nonprofit began to assess how community members were experiencing the digital divide, what their most urgent needs were, and how the organization could work to meet those needs.
Northwest Center currently offers free digital skills courses for anyone in the community. While most participants are between the ages of 55 and 65, Digital Learning Program Manager Reyna Rodriguez has seen students as young as 18 and as old as 87. The courses, set at the 101 level, meet biweekly and cover a variety of subjects, starting with the basics of how to navigate a smartphone. After collecting community input through the Chicago Connected initiative, Northwest Center’s digital navigators realized that prospective students needed to start from the beginning, learning how to turn on a phone and becoming familiar with elements of a smartphone interface, such as learning how to access and change settings like Bluetooth connection.
“People are below like 101,” says Rodriguez. “They’re like at 100. They’re afraid to touch [a device]; they’re afraid to break it. They don’t know how to turn it on.”
Northwest Center’s navigators and program staff then reviewed available digital skills training resources like Northstar and drew inspiration from them; from there, the organization developed its own curriculum based on what members of the public said they needed. The end result of this process was an eight-module one-on-one course created by Northwest Center’s digital navigators, or “coaches,” and initially implemented through one-on-one instruction from 2021 to 2023, moving to a group format from 2023 onward. Upon completion of the eight-module individualized course, learners took home their own refurbished laptop to continue honing their digital skills.
In the four years since Northwest Center began offering its digital skills courses, the organization has continued to adjust its curricula and course offerings based on the feedback and evolving needs of the community. In addition to its original curricula, Northwest Center uses resources from one of its program funders, UnidosUS; the nonprofit receives funding through Digital Skills for Life, an initiative by UnidosUS to connect Latino/a adults to digital skills programs.
Outside of its courses, Northwest Center hosts regular workshops on topics requested by the community, such as an introduction to design platforms like Canva or a tutorial on how to purchase airline tickets online. Northwest Center’s current offerings include workshops, 101-level group courses, and office hours for one-on-one support for course takers. Group courses are all held in Spanish, while workshops are held in Spanish or English. The courses have a long waiting list, and the group format allows more people to participate, while the option to come in for office hours allows students to get individualized support from coaches or practice on their own using the nonprofit’s devices and other resources.
“They can continue practicing the curriculum from that day,” says Rodriguez. “Usually the stuff they practice most is typing, sending emails, doing research, and then also applying to jobs. That’s a really big one. But any other time that we’re not in a class, the computer lab is open to people.”
Topics covered in the digital skills courses include:
- Device basics;
- Introduction to internet connectivity;
- Professional communications;
- Social media;
- Personal and educational applications; and
- Digital privacy and security.
The organization maintains strong partnerships that enable its ongoing digital navigation work, most importantly with local schools and affiliated organizations. Northwest Center’s digital skills courses take place at a Parent University location at Steinmetz College Prep, a public high school in Belmont Cragin. Parent Universities are community resource centers funded by CPS in each of its 13 school “networks.” Supporting Parent University’s mission to “provide learning experiences to empower families to support their student’s academic success, and to assist parent/guardians in furthering their own education and developing new skills,” the host site provides the classroom space and computer lab to Northwest Center in return for its digital skills courses and community engagement.
What We Can Learn
Northwest Center’s work is constantly changing based on the needs of the Belmont Cragin community and the capacity of the organization. Over the course of Northwest Center’s digital skills program development, the nonprofit has learned more than a few things about how to best serve its community members.
Consistent Community Feedback Is Essential
Northwest Center has polled the community through cold calling, online outreach, and student feedback through verbal intake sessions and post-course survery forms about what digital navigation resources would best serve community members, ensuring that lessons are tailored to their needs. The nonprofit also maintains open channels of communication with learners who have “graduated,” offering extended support and opportunities to continue learning with coaches as capacity allows.
The program model is ever-evolving, with a second level of digital skills courses in development based on past students’ desire to continue learning more advanced digital skills. For the Level Two course, Rodriguez hopes to include Google Suite (including Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides, among other tools), Microsoft Excel, and further training with social media and online finances.
Key Partnerships Lead to Consistent Engagement
Partnering with organizations that have aligned missions to provide a learning environment that suits the needs of students is crucial to Northwest Center’s work. Conducting digital skills courses on-site at the local Parent University enables parents to attend the classes while their kids are at school. Combining digital skills courses with additional offerings from both Parent University and Northwest Center allows students to apply their digital skills in areas such as telehealth, workforce development, and immigration support.
“That’s really important for us, not to be an organization that only provides one resource,” says Yeni Pinedo, director of the Community Schools & Youth team at Northwest Center. “We like to support our community in whatever the need is.”
Northwest Center’s other offerings include health and wellness classes, ESL courses, GED courses, immigrants’ rights and renters’ rights workshops, and financial literacy workshops. The organization also holds similar offerings specifically for older adults at the Kelvyn Park Senior Satellite Center (KPSC) in Belmont Cragin, including digital literacy workshops.
Devices Are Critical to Long-Term Learning
Receiving a laptop upon completion of Northwest Center’s previous one-on-one digital skills course gave graduated learners the opportunity to maintain sustainable digital skills practice and ongoing skill development. Participants in all the nonprofit’s different programs do not typically have a computer at home, or if they do, they have a shared device that supports their children’s schoolwork, spouse’s job, or other household responsibilities. Having a personal device enables learners to continue to apply the coursework and facilitates long-term use. For current group course takers––who do not receive a device upon completion of the program––or for individual workshop attendees, having a community space like Northwest Center or a local library is key for learners to be able to use public-facing computer services and receive help.
“A couple of people that have taken my Canva class have come in and worked on their designs,” says Rodriguez. “We’ve had some successful stories like … someone did a family reunion invitation. Someone else did a flyer for a pop-up they were doing in their small business. So we see real-life examples of this working.”
At the same time, access to working devices has proved a challenge for Northwest Center. The nonprofit has spent a lot of time dealing with malfunctioning or outdated devices that inhibit coaches and students alike from participating in its digital skills courses.
Northwest Center has had partnerships with nonprofit device refurbishers from whom they have both purchased computers and received device donations. Sometimes, according to Rodriguez, these devices had hardware issues that proved to be a barrier to instruction.
“At a certain point, we just couldn’t do much with them,” says Rodriguez. “And so out of a one-hour class, sometimes 15 of us were trying to turn [a device] on or trying to get the mouse to work. It was a lot of precious time that was lost.”
Rodriguez adds that the Northwest Center’s previous one-on-one program model led to the nonprofit purchasing a large batch of devices for a lower price, as every student who graduated from that program took their device home with them. “We were trying to get as many [computers] as we could to give them out to as many people as we can,” she says.
What Northwest Center staff plan to do next––depending on their future funding capabilities––is try to invest in a smaller number of more-dependable devices in order to maintain access for students in their group courses and office hours.
Digital Navigation Programs Can Provide Future Career Opportunities
Northwest Center has multiple interns involved in its digital skills courses, and by the end of the course, these interns will have each taught at least one class. Additionally, Northwest Center’s coaches have all been Belmont Cragin community members who trained to be navigators and drew from their own lived experience and knowledge of the community in developing the curriculum. Northwest Center’s leaders stress that digital navigation courses not only provide an opportunity to learn key digital skills but also provide an opportunity for learners themselves to eventually work in digital inclusion.
“ All of the original coaches are community residents themselves,” says Rodriguez. “And a lot of them were in the same boat, maybe four years ago, where they also didn’t know how to turn on a computer or were really slow at it. It’s been so great to see all of them flourishing.”
Securing ongoing funding is necessary for a small digital navigation program.
Northwest Center’s work has illuminated more of the Belmont Cragin community’s need for opportunities to learn digital skills. The organization faces balancing its own capacity with the growing interest in its programs amid a difficult funding climate for nonprofits. Looking ahead, Northwest Center is working on addressing a few ongoing challenges to the nonprofit’s work.
Northwest Center has faced challenges with securing long-term funding and building capacity to handle applying to multiple short-term grants at the same time.
“Our funding has been like 90 percent for personnel and we have not been able to really extract funding for initiatives or even supplies,” says Rodriguez.
Since the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) ended June 1, 2024, state funding available at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and to nonprofits for ACP outreach have both dried up. Organizations like Northwest Center have struggled to fill that funding void. Reyna Rodriguez is now the sole community coach teaching the digital skills group courses, since there is not enough funding to retain the rest of the staff who were trained to be coaches.
“We spent a lot of money on personnel, but I think we need more money specifically for that,” she says. “And that's just for the digital equity program. Right now as an organization, we are definitely feeling the effects of all that COVID money that is no longer here.”
To help with this, Rodriguez says, Northwest Center has applied for countless smaller grants to support its programs.
“Right now, a lot of our programs aren’t sustainable ’cause we’re just doing those bandage grants––that’s what we like to call them––to cover another six months, a year, but not long-term.”
However, the grant application process can be incredibly taxing for a small staff with an already overwhelming workload. “We can apply for a grant of $5,000 or $10,000, but the amount of work they request to get that money is insane,” says Yeni Pinedo. “With $10,000 we can’t even pay a coach … it’s not enough.”
Looking Ahead
Northwest Center, above all, is determined to offer programs that make a difference in the lives of Belmont Cragin residents.
Parent University Program Manager Erika Amaya stresses the importance of providing wraparound services based on community needs, just as Northwest Center devised its digital navigation program based on specific feedback from its coaches and learners. “Parent University conducts a survey each year to know what resources the community needs,” says Amaya. Parent University programs aim to contribute toward building “sustainable community schools” that benefit the whole family, she adds.
While Northwest Center, Parent University, and their partners provide extensive services outside of its digital skills courses, some community members who may want to attend still aren't able to because of work schedules, childcare, and other responsibilities. Parent University addresses many of these barriers, but not all; enabling the flexibility and resources to attract students who have many demands on their time––who may not be able to work into their schedule a course load requiring regular attendance––remains a challenge for Northwest Center. Parent University locations are only for adult learners, so staff stress the need for funding or organizational partnerships that would help provide day care to adults participating in their programs.
Northwest Center sees its digital skills courses as complementary to its larger array of offerings for adults in Belmont Cragin. Its program sets learners up so that by the time they finish the course, not only do they know the basics of navigating their device, but they also are able to access online banking apps, telehealth appointments, online immigration resources, and other material. In this way, the nonprofit integrates its digital navigation work into other community needs that it works to serve; a graduate of a Northwest Center digital skills course may be able to attend another program offered by the organization and use the foundational digital skills they have gained to further explore applied needs they may have in other areas of their lives, like the aforementioned priorities and many more.
Further, Northwest Center serves as a successful model for how digital skills training for smartphone-centric learners can lead to personal computer use and ownership. Students in the digital skills courses at Northwest Center start with growing accustomed to the basics of a smartphone and then expand those skills to encompass desktop or laptop computer applications. During the one-on-one courses, students received a personal computer upon program completion; now, as a part of the group course format, they are able to continue using these devices at Northwest Center or other community anchor institutions. Regardless, Northwest Center’s programs demonstrate how digital skills courses in similar communities with high smartphone ownership but lower rates of computer access can help to close the gap in device ownership, usage, and digital skills.
Written by: Grace Tepper
More in this Series:
- At the Denver Public Library, People Skills are the Most Important Quality When Choosing Digital Navigators
- The Mercedes Library Exemplifies a Vital Effort to Promote Digital Independence
- How Everyone On Navigates Change to Deliver Digital Equity
- Free Geek, Devices, and Digital Equity
- Mass General Brigham Understands that Digital Equity Supports Health Equity
- Northwest Center Engages Community, Advances Digital Skills
- The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority Leans Into Collaboration
- The Human Infrastructure of Broadband: Looking Back, Looking Around, and Looking Ahead
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