As part of the Skills Recovery Fund, unemployed adults identified by the Foundation in East Sussex, Essex and Kent can build on and improve their digital skills.

The one-week programme brings together like-minded individuals to work collectively on group and personal challenges around digital education. Those on the programme will be looking to develop a wide-range of skills they can then take in to the workplace.

At the end of the programme, participants will then be ready to apply for employment, consider a number of different roles and gain a renewed sense of purpose and belief.The online project focuses on five key areas:

• Essential digital skills for employment• Harnessing the power of social media• Creating an engaging online brand• Career planning – finding your passion• Protecting your online privacy and security

Martin Burrows, Chelsea Foundation employment trainer, said: ‘The Modern Digital skills course is a project that we are very pleased to be delivering. It has been created as a reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic and is helping to provide skills for people who find themselves seeking employment in a much-changed working environment that has expectations of working from home and using technology in a remote or autonomous position.

‘Recent students have said how much they have enjoyed and felt the importance of learning about video conferencing, internet safety and security, the place of social media in work and appropriate internet behaviour in a work context.’

The next cohort will begin on Monday 24 January. There is still an opportunity to join the programme if you live in East Sussex, Essex or Kent and are currently unemployed or your employment has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Employers in these regions can also access the free training for their staff.

For more information, please contact [email protected]