Social problem: digital solution?

Google Impact Challenge Awards

Can tech be the answer to the UK’s social problems?

Google certainly thinks so –last week we saw Richard Branson announced the winners of their Google Impact Challenge, which asked UK charities to “change the world through innovative technology”.

The answers were impressive. The finalists included: smart glasses for people with sight loss (RNIB), data analytics to keep young people off the streets (Centrepoint) and an online hub helping ex-offenders transition back into the community (St. Giles Trust).

Other finalists helped young people through an online platform to help separating parents avoid disputes (Relate), and through digital games to help young people with their mental health (We Are What We Do).

The four winners received £500k and the six runner ups received £200k to respectively develop their tech solutions.

At Poached we’re excited by the potential of tech to meet the needs of a wide range of vulnerable people, especially young people. We recently held our own (much smaller!) search for digital solutions by hosting a mental health forum - in partnership with Mediorite - looking for digital solutions to help young people with their mental health.

The forum was inspired by the need for immediate help for young people with mental health problems without access to services, or needing services out of hours – an increasing problem due to government cuts in this area. Digital is naturally 24/7, and the domain of young people:

“Young people live in a digital world, and if we don’t engage with them on that level, we fail to engage with them.” said Billy Dann from Comic Relief UK and the Innovation Labs initiative, who attended the forum.

Other attendees included local youth charities Off Centre, Art Against Knives and Streets of Growth, as well as Prince's Trust and Childline.

What we lacked in £millions and Richard Branson we made up for in spirited discussion and local partnership building!

We discussed problems like the ‘postcode lottery’ of mental health services and the stigma of talking about mental health, and how digital solutions can help overcome these problems. Several organisations agreed to work together through ‘live partnership brokering’; helpful online resources like Mindfull and MindEd were shared, and new ideas like a website bringing together all mental health campaigns were put forward.

We made change by gathering over 100 petition signatures at the event alone for ‘properly funding children and young people’s mental health services’, and many more online.

Whether working nationally or in your own backyard, with young people or another vulnerable group; tech can help make the difference.

Why measure social impact?

Photo by Steve Harris

The majority (68%) of social enterprises now measure their social impact, according to Social Enterprise UK's State of Social Enterprise 2013 Survey.

Social enterprises Poached Creative and Iridescent Ideas recently teamed up to find out why:

“As a social enterprise providing communications services to the social enterprise sector, we wanted to understand the motivations for social impact reporting and identify the barriers for those social enterprises not already doing it.” said Jessica Smith, Director of Poached Creative.

Together they decided to run a campaign to discover the answers to these questions. They produced a white paper on social impact reporting - Why impact? – and ran a twitter social debate using the hashtag #whyimpact.

As part of the debate, social entrepreneur Liam Black shared his top two reasons for social impact reporting on twitter: first, you owe it to the taxpayers who subsidise you, and second, you find out vital data about your business.

Social impact reporting can also help prove your business is making an impact, define the need and market for your services, motivate your team, help publicise your work and secure future business.

But with all these benefits, why are over a third (32%) of social enterprises still not measuring their impact?

The Why Impact white paper identifies that social enterprises can find social impact reporting time-consuming, expensive and confusing.

One of the confusing aspects is that there is no single social impact measurement, but a variety available. The main two are social auditing or accounting and social return oninvestment (SROI), with other methods usually a variation on these approaches.

As for being time-consuming and expensive, proportionality is key (according to think tank Demos) –the amount of work needed for evaluation should be in line with and not outweigh the size of the organisation. Larger social enterprises may have the capacity to take on a fuller SROI type of assessment, whereas smaller enterprises may need a simpler approach.   

Social enterprise Iridescent Ideas has addressed this issue, by offering their ‘simple’ social impact report service:

“Monitoring and evaluation methods to prove impact need to be simple, commensurate with the outcomes expected and, critically, make it easy to collect meaningful data. This takes planning, of course, but thinking it through at the start will mean that what is valued gets measured and what is measured gets valued.” said Gareth Hart of Iridescent Ideas.

To find out more visit www.iridescentideas.com/impact

Gaps in mental health services need urgent action

Mental health is big news at the moment and organisations that work with children and young people, in particular, are seeing first-hand the affect that funding cuts are having on waiting times and access to services.

Director of creative agency Mediorite, Lucy Ferguson, works with creative young people and shares an office with Poached Creative. She has been frustrated at the gaps in mental health services and recognised that colleagues in other organisations are experiencing the same problems.

She said: "I've got young people working with me who are in crisis, who need help now. I'm not a mental health professional. What are we supposed to do while they wait for mental health services?"

Outgoing president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Sue Bailey, last month described services in England as a 'car crash'. Her comments have drawn attention to a funding crisis that the British Medical Association's annual meeting was told would lead to "avoidable deaths and suicides".

At least 1,700 mental health beds have been closed since 2011 and this is putting pressure on in-patient teams to discharge patients as early as possible, in turn increasing the strain on underfunded community mental health teams.

Despite a Government commitment to make mental health as important as physical health, an April 2014 Budget decision has resulted in a cut to mental health services that's 20 per cent greater than the cuts to acute services, according to a letter from six leading mental health organisations.

And it's young people's services that are being hit the hardest.

Young Minds reports that more than half of councils have cut or frozen budgets for child and adolescent mental health.

The number of teenagers who have self-harmed has tripled in England over the last decade, according to a Health Behaviour in School Age Children report.

Early intervention when young people first experience mental health issues has proved to be the most effective, and cost effective, way to tackle the issues.

A report from mental health charity Rethink shows that early intervention that treats young people swiftly when they first experience psychosis, can save the NHS £15 for every £1 spent.

Yet 50% of early intervention teams have faced cuts in the last year.

All this leads me to the conclusion that the current approach to funding mental health services in England is fundamentally flawed. The Government needs to address funding for mental health services now, before more damage is done.

That's why at Poached Creative and Mediorite we're supporting Ben Jolly's petition calling on Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene and properly fund mental health services for children and young people. Sign the petition now.

A Young Minds young people's manifesto in 2012 tells in young people's own words why this is so important. The issues haven't changed. Take a look...

Volunteering, free labour or a lifeline?

Picture by: Anil Parmer, Poached
Creative's fifth birthday party

It is often argued that volunteers are the backbone of the charity sector, according to the Guardian 91% of charities are entirely run by unpaid staff. However, volunteering is mutually beneficial to volunteers as well as employers, it is a two way stream, and based on my brief experience as a volunteer with Poached Creative I could argue that it is more rewarding to the volunteer than to the company itself.

I would not be exaggerating if I say that volunteering is transforming my life by the minute. 

  

Looking back at my life one year ago, I was in turmoil; depressed, experiencing all sorts of family conflicts, having to drop out of University, losing my flat, being imprisoned twice in the space of one year. My life was a mortifying chapter from a horror book. I was in an utter state of despair; I woke up every day thinking the End of the world is past noon. I would never have envisaged digging myself out of that hole.

However, I was very fortunate to learn about Poached Creative through The Big Issue on line journalism course. A course provided by Poached Creative in conjunction with the Big Issue; at the time I lacked the drive, and the motivation to start something new. I missed two initial induction interviews.  And when I thought that I messed it up for myself. The managing director of Poached Creative Jessica Smith contacted me again, and we scheduled another interview which this time I attended. I am ever indebted to her patience.

I then attended the six week Journalism course, which was a turning point in my life. Not only did I acquire new skills.   The whole experience profoundly impacted the way I perceived my future, it instilled a sense of optimism and hope towards the future, which incentivised  me to work harder and improve myself. The depression and helplessness I was feeling began to fade away by the week.

I successfully completed the course and progressed to a volunteering role within Poached Creative, which is a design and writing social enterprise.

Having something to wake up to makes all the difference, it drives you to work harder and open your eyes to opportunities you would otherwise have missed. It enriches your experience and boosts your morale.

Buy Social showcased to PR industry

The City of London Guild of Public Relations Practitioners and the PRCA held their first ever “Buy Social” forum, on 10 June, which aimed to persuade agencies and in-house teams to buy from social enterprises.

The event, hosted by Lloyds Banking Group, was attended by members from across the PR spectrum and featured a panel discussion and a showcase of social enterprises and networking.

Jonathan Chandler, Master of PR Guild delivered the opening speech and moderated the debate, which focused on identifying actionable next steps and addressing any concerns or issues arising from them.

Among the speakers were Matt Cartmel, Communication Director of PRCA; Suzanne Jones, Business and Support Director of City of London Corporation and  Celia Richardson, Director of Communications and Policy at Social Enterprise UK.

The Director of Poached Creative Jessica Smith also spoke to share her experience of working with the PR sector. She said:

"We work to put creative communications jobs within reach for disadvantaged people. You want to diversify your industry and we can help with that. Social entrepreneurs come from a range of backgrounds with experience in the media, corporate and charity sectors and we're keen to work in partnership with you on issues like this."

"Take a look at the directory and you'll see that there are social enterprises for almost anything you would want to buy. The most powerful way you can support the social enterprise sector is to trade with us."

The Buy Social Directory was launched on 4 June at the Guildhall by the Minister of Civil Society, Nick Hurd MP. To find out more visit http://www.buysocialdirectory.org.uk/ .

Mental Health Awareness at Poached Creative

I joined Poached Creative as a press office volunteer after three years of unemployment due to mental health difficulties.

I’ve been delighted to realise this is an office where I can be open about my diagnosis and some of the ways this impacts me, without fear of prejudice.   I am valued for my work and for what I bring to the organisation, not judged for my historical or current health status.

It’s hard to express how important this is for me, and how lucky I feel to have found such an opportunity.  Put simply, it is everything.

In the past I was told by careers advisors that it would be best if I kept my mental health history a secret from future employers and colleagues.  I know myself, and I know that doing that would only add to my anxiety in the workplace.

Feeling safe in the office, as I do at Poached Creative, removes a massive source of anxiety for me and actually makes it less likely to impact on my work.

I first realised that Poached Creative was going to be a safe place for me when I applied to join the online journalism course that they run with The Big Issue and which I completed in April, prior to starting work with them.  Before my interview for the course I looked at their website, and was impressed to read about Catriona’s experience with them utilizing the permitted paid work scheme, as well as Deputy Director Angela’s story of recovery from depression.

This told me that Poached Creative is a place which recognises the talents of those of us who have had problems with our mental health, rather than dismissing us.  It told me that I could be open with them, without being defined by my diagnosis.  They would look at me as a whole person, not just a label.

I now see this evidenced directly each day in the office.  Having stimulating and worthwhile work to do in a supportive office environment is helping me to regain my confidence and sense of self-worth as well as improving my skills for future paid employment, and I feel extremely lucky to be here.