TAO/Persona Heiko

Persona description of Heiko, a manager at a community centre

Personal characteristics

Heiko is a man of 56 years old, who lives together with his wife in Hillensberg, a small town near Geilenkirchen. His children (two daughters of 18 and 20) do not live at their parents' home anymore and his mother (85) lives in an elderly home. Heiko works as (program) manager of the community centre of Hillensberg. After graduating for Social Work Studies, he worked at different social institutions. For the past ten years he has been working in Hillensberg and now he is in charge of general managing tasks and course planning in particular. The community centre has a main offer in offline courses (handcrafts and arts). The community centre, however, is at present facing budget cuts.

Heiko’s professional goals

Heiko wants to offer more and new activities in the community centre. On the one hand he is looking for new sources of revenue, because of the budget cuts, and on the other hand for new target groups, where he is especially interested in the third age, since this is a large and growing group among the clients of the community centre. He wants to expand the offline courses to online, IT and media courses. Although he is aware of the current social media trends, he lacks competence in that field.

Stakeholders in Heiko's job

Management board of the community centre

Needs to ensure the economic sustainability of the centre

Mayor / policy makers at the municipality

Wants a thriving centre for the town, despite the but budget cuts that are actually being implemented

Current course participants

They are mostly interested in the continuation of their favourite courses; some of them are however interested in discovering new fields of interest

Possible future course participants

They want to get and feel involved in the centre, make new contacts and learn

Current staff members of the centre

They want to keep their jobs; most are ready to engage in professional development and training to secure their jobs

Possible future staff members of the centre

Want to get involved in the community centre

Possible sponsors

Need to see value before investing in the centre

Hobby clubs (partners)

Are questioning themselves to what extent they want to expand their activities online

Heiko's challenges

Heiko has to

train the current staff members or to find appropriate new staff members
maintain the current amount of participants
find new participants
interest/involve relevant sponsors
meet the other stakeholders' expectations
find effective ways to promote the centre's new offers

Difficulties to expect

further budget cuts
staff not cooperating
participants not happy, with either current participants leaving, or no new participants starting

Demands and expectations regarding support offers

coaching/training of the staff (1 | 2)
getting insights in social media/IT use among seniors (1 | 2)
best practices (1 | 3)
- getting hobby clubs online
- starting IT courses for seniors
- attracting senior participants
funding opportunities (4)
PR & marketing support (1 | 2)
effective participant evaluation (1 | 2)

Types of support:

Support through TAO Handbook & Community of Practice
Support via third parties offering courses/training/evaluation
Support through effective job shadowing
Support through regional/national/European (funding) institutions