From High-touch to High-tech: How has the pandemic reshaped charity and community services?

Vulnerable groups such as senior citizens, migrants, people with disabilities and those on lower incomes often rely on charity and community services to meet their basic needs such as subsistence, mental and emotional support, and life skills training.
Moving such services fully online, which happening during this pandemic, has threatened the well-being of these vulnerable groups. The greatest challenge has been to maintain the “human touch”…the human interaction and social connection in digital charity services, something that is crucial for the user’s wellbeing.
And that is why we are advocating through our research to look deeply into how the charity sector can ensure that the social and psychological support conveyed in face-to-face services is reflected in their digital services too.