How To Use Effort in Conjunction with Reverse Poco Generator

So I am Visual Studio 2017, EF6 and I am using this T4 template https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=SimonHughes.EntityFrameworkReversePOCOGenerator to generate my context class

Being a big fan of testing I already have 100% coverage with unit tests, but now I want to do Integration tests where I can call multiple parts of my system and pass through the changes - but of course I want to do this without touching a real disk DB.

So after searching for a bit I found Effort https://entityframework-effort.net/ and to me this looks like exactly what I want to use. Where I can create a database thats in memory, fill it with whatever fixtures I want and than call multiple methods from various parts of my system. However, the thing I am trying to find out is how to make it work in my situation I have tried DBConnectionFactory, EntityConnectionFactory, ObjectConnectionFactory and every time I get the Error Message:-

"EffortException: Database has not been initialized".

this is the code block I am using in my setup:-

   var newsCtx = Effort.DbConnectionFactory.CreatePersistent("2");
   _newsEntities = new NewsEntities(newsCtx);
   _newsEntities.Database.CreateIfNotExists();
   _newsEntities.Channels.Add(new Channel
   {
            Id = 1,
            Title = "Convenience Store - ",
            Link = "https://www.conveniencestore.co.uk/XmlServers/navsectionRSS.aspx?navsectioncode=123",
            Description = "https://www.conveniencestore.co.uk",
            Image = "https://www.conveniencestore.co.uk/magazine/dest/graphics/logo/logo.png",
            PublishedAt = null,
            UpdatedAt = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-2),
            Enabled = true,
            Type = "Rss_2_0",
            Author = null,
            Category = null,
            Copyright = null,
            Generator = null
   });
   _newsEntities.SaveChanges();

When I get to the saveChanges I get the exception which suggests that I add the .CreateIfNotExists() which I have already done, however, I still get the error. I can see samples and examples on various links where it works... however I dont want to abandon my t4 template as it gives me exactly what I want.

I am a little lost and I am wondering has anybody used a reverse poco generator that creates the context and used this in conjunction with Effort. I would love to use both and If somebody can give me a pointer so that I can get decent integration tests working with in memory DB I would be as happy as a sandboy

Regards Julian

this is the generated method in the Poco from the t4 template

    public NewsEntities(System.Data.Common.DbConnection existingConnection)
        : base(existingConnection, true)
    {
        this.Database.Connection.Open();
    }