Premier Partnership’s involvement began when they were introduced by a contact of Director David Pearson to YWCA Yorkshire. As part of Premier Partnership’s commitment to supporting charities and social value policies, the objective was clear: develop a fully functional VLE accessible to both service users and volunteers. A bulk of the costs of the project was absorbed by Premier Partnership with only minimal cost to the YMCA.

Premier’s data team, led by Josh Ackermann, created a custom Moodle platform within just three months. Comprehensive training and instruction manuals were provided to Diane Offers and Nicole Cannon, the main administrators at YWCA.

However, Diane and Nicole faced challenges in adapting to the new system due to their busy schedules. To bridge this gap, Premier introduced an expert with both Moodle VLE knowledge and instructional experience with Becky Dyson brought onboard to manage and offer ongoing support throughout the project.

The collaboration took shape with face-to-face meetings and communication between Diane, Nicole, and the Premier team. The collaboration aimed to align the VLE units with YWCA’s training objectives and verification procedures. Diane and Nicole provided insights into the exact training requirements, and Premier’s specialists integrated these into the platform.

Becky became the driving force in building the VLE units. She ensured YWCA’s vision remained intact while also suggesting innovative features. Regular communication, unit previews, and collaborative decision-making was all part of the building process with Becky’s creativity evidenced by her solution to embed self-calculating budgeting spreadsheets directly into activities, ensuring user accessibility.

By the second meeting at the beginning of August 2023, 8 out of 15 service user units and all 4 volunteer units were complete. The collaboration identified areas for improvement by adapting spreadsheet functionalities for user accessibility. Premier and YWCA Yorkshire look forward to a final meeting where all units will be completed and refined.

Premier provided step-by-step guidance to empower Nicole in using the VLE with volunteers. Diane’s testimonial reflects their satisfaction with Premier’s professionalism, support, and innovative solutions. Premier’s commitment to YWCA Yorkshire’s request was evident, as they not only met technical requirements but also co-created an innovative, user-friendly VLE.

Diane said, “At YWCA Yorkshire our aim is to create a better future for women, children & families. We are a charity providing housing related support across Sheffield, Rotherham & Doncaster. Part of the support that we offer is to provide accredited and endorsed training programmes via NOCN. Our programmes are designed for our service users to support them in areas specific to their support plans and to empower them to be able to gain qualifications and skills when, in many cases, this may have been difficult for them previously.”

The move to digital has been a big step, “All of our programmes are currently paper based and as a local charity, funding was very tight to enable us to move the programmes to an online learning environment which would make them much more user friendly and accessible to our service users. We were very lucky to be able to form a partnership with Premier Partnership and our experience of working with them has been excellent! They have developed our Virtual Learning Environment in line with our requirements and have also part-funded the project!”

Premier’s expertise and agility shone through in the build and ongoing support of the platform, as she confirmed “The technical team, Chris & Josh, were really professional and helpful and they have given their time for additional meetings when we have needed their support. After having some issues with the build, Chris responded quickly by introducing us to Becky who has been fabulous in supporting us with the ongoing build and has been a pleasure to work with. Becky communicates with us in a way that we can clearly understand, without jargon, and has offered some great ideas and suggestions to enable us to get the most from the platform. The work is ongoing and we are excited to see the finished product and start working with it for the benefit of our service users, We can’t thank the team enough for their professionalism and support.”

As the final product takes shape, YWCA Yorkshire anticipates huge benefits to its service users through this new digital platform. Premier’s support will continue even after the handover, ensuring a smooth transition. The project represents the successful synergy between YWCA Yorkshire’s mission and Premier Partnership’s technical expertise, resulting in a powerful tool for empowerment and learning.

Premier Partnership’s collaboration with YWCA Yorkshire enabled the transformation of traditional paper-based training into an accessible, innovative Virtual Learning Environment. This partnership underscores the power of technology to amplify the impact of charitable initiatives, ultimately contributing to creating better futures for women, children, and families.