The Be Part of Someone’s Memories campaign has been one of the most successful fostering and adoption campaigns in Scotland. With a national shortage of carers and increasing stiff competition from a growing number of independent providers, Families for Children has approved more adoptive parents and foster carers for Glasgow’s most vulnerable children.
PLANNING / · a clear rationale, defined processes and focus on stakeholder needs· contributes to organisation’s goals and addresses current or emerging challenges
The campaign objectives were ambitious, clear and measurable: to encourage people to come forward as potential foster carers or adoptive parents for Glasgow’s most vulnerable children.
The agreed target was to recruit 35 new foster carers and 45 adopters over a twelve month period. This objective fits into Glasgow City Council’s strategy, being clearly linked to the Glasgow City Council Plan, (Objective 5, Improving Health and Well-Being), which prioritises the recruitment of foster carers and adoptive parents.
Glasgow has currently 1368 children looked after and accommodated. Common themes of issues for children who require to be fostered across the city are around neglect by their parents, exposure to domestic violence, children who are affected by the drug use and alcohol use of their parents, and children who suffer abuse by their parents.
The number of children accommodated by fostering services in Glasgow is on the rise as is the number of children who are unable to return home to the care of their parents. This means that as a corporate parent Glasgow has the responsibility to provide more adoptive parents and placements for the children of Glasgow.
Increasing competition from independent providers made it vital that we stand out in the growing marketplace: the main identified benefit of the recruitment campaign would be to reduce the council’s spend and reliance on purchased placements, by being able to place more of Glasgow’s vulnerable children with our own carers. A clear budget was set and the ambitious campaign planned within these parameters.
DELIVERING / · implemented in all relevant areas and across all the required stakeholders· carried out in a structured and logical way , using robust and sustainable methods
We had previously used an external advertising agency for campaigns, but, given the financial climate, decided to keep this campaign in-house.
The Council’s Education Graphics team devised the powerful visual ‘Be Part of Someone’s Memories’, working in partnership with the wider Families for Children team, with knowledge gained from discussions with existing carers and adopters, as well as children. The visual is a collage of childhood snapshots, such as drawings, old photographs, concert tickets etc – the sort of thing you will find on most family fridges. We hoped that this would spark recognition with the general public and draw their attention to the plea to ‘Be Part of Someone’s Memories.’
We solicited support from a host high-profile celebrities and were delighted to receive memories from celebrities including Billy Connolly, Sir Alex Ferguson, Clare Grogan, Michelle Mone, Peter Capaldi, Kaye Adams and actor Gray O’Brien. The involvement of these celebrities was a strong draw for the media and gained us extensive publicity, as well as being cost-free.
Our current foster carers and adopters were involved in the campaign through contributing memories, speaking at the launch event, talking to the media and advising at information evenings.
The campaign was shown strong support shown by council staff, existing carers and adopters, and senior officials, including Glasgow’s Lord Provost, Bob Winter, who contributed a memory to the campaign. Joined-up working across the Council resulted in graphic, social work, education and corporate communications all liaising closely together
The campaign also had a community focus: we worked with two Glasgow primary schools to involve children in writing memories, learning about fostering / adopting and presenting their memories to the Lord Provost. This group included looked-after children.
An identified initial barrier to the project was the internal caution over piloting a text/sms response, which would allow people to text their enquiry to us after seeing an STV advert. As an innovative new tactic for the Council there was understandable caution. Families for Children felt that texting would be a good option for people who wanted to get information easily but were perhaps nervous about making an initial phone call, and so we worked to demonstrate the potential benefit and were subsequently given the green light.
Distilling the complex nature of fostering and adoption into a 30-second TV and radio advert proved a challenge and we worked collaboratively with carers and staff to create a final version which reflected our service, recruiting respected broadcaster Kaye Adams to front the radio and television adverts. We are very proud of the result and the level of enquiries generated.
The campaign had a relatively small budget of £80,000 but by working creatively and recruiting an in-house design team rather than an external agency we were able to maximise resources. In terms of staff resources, the main resource was the Communications and Recruitment Senior Officer, driving the campaign and linking with the press office, advertising unit, graphics and staff across Social Work. The campaign had strong buy-in not only from the above staff (listed in intro) and teams but from across the Council.
We also negotiated free advertising space at St Enoch Centre and maximised cost-effective PR coverage.
INNOVATION + LEADING PRACTICE / · Demonstrates leading practice, and is capable of replication elsewhere· Achieves genuine innovation or new ways of working
Families for Children and the Council’s Education graphics team worked together to create one of the most successful fostering and adoption campaigns in Scotland.
Building on the theme of childhood memories, we gained valuable support and personal memories from the many celebrities. Billy Connolly’s message in support of the campaign was his first public act of support for Glasgow since gaining Freedom of the City.
An innovative partnership was established with the St Enoch Shopping Centre, who gifted us a 30 foot wall in their Food Court for a Memories frieze, and allowed us to hold the launch event there. A Memory Box allowed St Enoch visitors to post favourite memories, providing an opportunity for shoppers to engage in the campaign. This partnership with St Enoch was shortlisted for the SOLAL European Marketing Awards.
A first for the Council, we piloted text response, inviting people respond to our STV advert by texting GLASGOW 81025. We were overwhelmed by the response, receiving 384 text enquiries over a ten-day period, (March 21 – April 1).
We have instigated the use of Facebook, Twitter and text responses, all of which point the way to a new direction for marketing with the rise of social media.
RESULTS + IMPACT / · a convincing mix of customer and internal performance measures·demonstrates howbetter outcomes are being achieved
· a full range of relevant results– either already achieved or with potential to deliverover time
The campaign’s results have been measured at every stage. More than 1000 enquiries were received via phone, email and text, a significant rise from any previous campaign. Already, our recruitment targets have been met for adoption and exceeded for fostering, with 113 approvals so far, (55 fostering and 58 adoption). There are also a further 46 fostering resources and 45adoption resources under or awaiting assessment. Due to the length of time the approval process takes, there will be more approvals to come from the campaign, i.e. those people currently undergoing assessment.
We have had to increase our information evenings from monthly to fortnightly to accommodate demand. In addition to the strong outcomes, there has also been a rise in the profile and reputation of Families for Children amongst the wider public and across the Council.
During the campaign, Families for Children also conducted a full audit of its recruitment processes. By closely monitoring enquiries and identifying problem areas, we have overhauled our reporting systems to improve recording. This puts us in a much stronger position going forward.
Although our campaign objectives have been successfully met, allowing more children to be accommodated by the Families for Children service, the number of children coming into care continues to rise and so we will continue to seek new and innovative ways of recruiting more foster carers and adoptive parents for Glasgow.
COSLA EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2013 Page | 1
COSLA EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2013 Page | 1