Last year, the neighbourhood house was one of 71 organisations selected by Good Things Foundation Australia to teach digital health literacy skills through the Health My Way program.

Through the program, funded by the Australian Digital Health Agency, the foundation trained and resourced 232 digital health mentors and directly supported more than 3000 people to improve their skills.

While the program is open to people of all ages, it is especially helpful for older people who may be less tech-savvy than others and ties in to the organisation's other literacy programs, with classes teaching older people how to use certain devices or apps tying into classes about how to use government apps such as myGov or My Health Record to manage their pension or healthcare services.

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While the neighbourhood house received funding last year, the COVID-19 pandemic put a spanner in the works but has allowed it to continue the program through to the end of June.

Coordinator Alison Demuth said the program started as a pilot 18 months ago.

"There was a concern in the community, which is probably right, that people weren't understanding how to use myGov and myGov has now become the thing we all use," she said.

"From there, we flow into talking about have they touched into myGov which is really important if you're elderly now because everything seems to be doing that way."

"We're relying on older people to do more on their device than ever before and they're sometimes struggling with that."

Lead digital mentor Greg Horgan said sometimes the hardest part was convincing people they needed to learn these skills.

"Sometimes that's difficult because you've got people who just don't want to do it," he said.

"Chances are they'll tell you to go and look on your computer now, which they do, or you're going to have to ring up this special hotline and because I'm an aged pensioner as well, I can tell them that's usually a three or four-hour wait."

The Ballarat Neighbourhood House's Health My Way program is currently open. For more information or to book a place, call 0491 753 307.

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