Children First: Enhancing Adoption Awareness Campaign

1. Children First Campaign Presented by Carol Homden & Joanne Gray 10th March 2016

2. Reminder of our Objectives & Strategy

3. What are we trying to achieve? • To enhance public understanding of the need for decisions which protect children from risk of harm and achieve timely decisions for permanent placement. • To increase public appreciation of the value and place of adoption as one of these options with lifelong benefit for children most at risk. • To increase market confidence of VAAs and our capacity to increase sector share of adopter choice/enquiries for future • To increase placements/LA customer purchases in the context of regional agencies.

4. Our strategy to deliver our objectives Roll out a consistent & differentiated Brand Positioning Digital Capacity Building – create a ‘louder adoption voice’ Tackling Public Perception of decrease in adoption & build support to retain adopter interest for future children Build on our collaboration approach with defined network service offer

5. Roll out a consistent & differentiated Brand Positioning • Positioning roll out documents sent out in January • Only 8 agencies have sent in their invoices and confirmed they have made the recommended changes to their websites. • Search & replace is worth £1k!! If you have not yet completed your roll out – please can do it by the end of March!

6. OUR CAMPAIGN Over-arching creative hook CHILDREN FIRST

7. Createa “louder” & consistent child-centred voice that benefits VAA’s and adoption as an outcome for children The Idea: • A national network of IAA adoption champions • To recruit at least one from each agency • To train these with First4Adoption • Central co-ordination via Joanne Gray • Who will manage #werehereforyou and provide regular commentary which reinforces adoption as a vital choice for vulnerable children, using examples of participating IAAs which can be sent out via each agencies own social media • Sustainable in future via First4Adoption or by each IAA • contributing to the on-going resource

8. What we’ve achieved: • We now have 15 Social Media Champions from 10 different agencies • 2 workshops in February (London & Manchester) – with great feedback, scoring 616 / 650, so 97% • Another two workshop planned for Manchester & London • Social media content idea / calendar provided to all champions • A follow up to the training / networking session for all champions in June

9. Blogs already active!

10. Digital Curation the single most important capacity for the 21st Century

11. Our Campaign – Putting Children First Tackling Public Perception of decrease in adoption & build support to retain adopter interest for future children Tackling public perception & seeding positive adoption news stories & content To amplify the stories of adopted children The Big Adoption Day

12. Tackling public perception & seeding positive adoption news stories & content The Idea: • Conduct the largest survey amongst adopted young people – to reinforce the message that being adopted made them feel “safe & secure”. • Carry out a public opinion survey to demonstrate adoption is not a minority concern – it in fact touches the lives of so many people.

13. What have we done? • We surveyed just over 2k of the general population & they confirmed what we • expected – the public are ill informed about adoption! • We asked a series of questions around the numbers of children adopted, reasons • why children were adopted and perceptions /experience of adoption. • We’ve created a news story that will go live on 13thMarch, with the headline: • “New research reveals public misconception about scale of abuse of children needing adoption” • We’re conducting radio interviews across England on 15th March with spokespeople • from 6 different agencies.

15. Amplifying the stories of adopted children & reinforcing our child friendliness • We spoke to and gathered insights from nearly 100 adopted • children (quantitative & qualitative research). • There is a resounding positivity amongst the young people we • spoke to in terms of feeling happy, safe & secure. • We are developing an additional news story to go out over the • Easter weekend.

16. Here’s what the young people told us… Draft Draft Not yet approved

17. What does this mean for us?

18. What next for adopters and adoption…? • Mobilising social media champions to amplify our news story • Equipping agencies to tackle the European perspective • Position briefing produced by John Simmonds • Pro-active liason with MEPs, particularly in London • The Big Adoption Day & planning for national adoption week

19. What next for children? • Best practice tool kit for Young People’s Participation Groups developed by • CoramBAAF featuring the exemplars from Independent Adoption Agencies. • Co-ordinating feature stories to co-ordinate with the launch of it via the marketing position hub. • In addition, in April we will be launching a “Tell-Your-Story” campaign with • The Adoptables ambassadors: • A plea from The Adoptables team – please put forward any potential young ambassadors that could join the team! Contact ErinaNaluwaga: erina.naluwaga@coram.org.uk • Build on the momentum of The Big Adoption Day for the future

20. 30+ events taking place, across all regions

21. The Big Adoption Day • Tackling adopter concern that There are No Children • And that “agencies are closed” • Reinforcing “We’re Here for You” • And that we are “Child-Friendly”

22. What have we done? • Events set up on First4Adoption • Poster artwork provided to all agencies • Series of social media posts & images have been sent & are circulating on • with a push from First4Adoption • Press release has been sent to all agencies Don’t forget, to get your invoices in asap for your events (£2k for the first event & £1k for any other you are holding)

23. And we’ll be showcasing our new animation • We took direction from some work done by The Adoptables and • TalkAdoption in terms of what is important to adopted children: • Key themes: communication, school, life story work, behaviour & support. • We used these themes to develop a discussion guide for Young People’s • Participation groups: • Held by After Adoption and Caritas Care (16 children) in January • We took the insights from the groups to develop a brief that our animator transformed into scripts, which were tested with the young people and further refined until we reached our final script…..

24. And here it is…

25. What next…? • Animation on USBs (one per agency) to take away • Full version • Snippets covering key themes • Play out at your Big Adoption Day • We’ll then use it to support our 2nd “child-friendly” news story • After Easter, please feel free to put the animation onto your • own website and social media channels

26. Adoption Practice – Putting Children First Build on our collaboration approach Targeted recruitment to increase placements by embedded working with National Adoption Register Develop value for regional agency delivery of concurrent planning via regional hubs

27. Targeted recruitment to increase placements by embedded working with National Adoption Register The Idea: The National Adoption Register has just 1816 adopters on it for some 239 children. 26% are from IAAs, limiting their chances of matches being identified for them by the team. It was proposed to security check and deploy 10 social workers from the agencies with the largest number of adopters waiting to seek to achieve more placements. This can be combined with an approach to help adopters to wait or to explore the needs of children by means of an exchange day format (in say March) and/or workshops including for example the psychology of waiting and discussion with medical advisers?

28. What we’ve achieved: • 9 agencies have taken part: • Adoption Matters, Families for Children, PACT, Coram, After Adoption, Caritas Care, Adoption Focus, Barnardos, ARC NE • 18 visits to the Register have been made so far, with allotted dates agreed by attending social workers for April and May. • IAAs at the forefront of shaping new business partner approach for the register in advance of the adopter access pilot.

29. No links as yet, although lots of possibilities for my adopters to consider. I am really enjoying the experience and feel as though I am gaining a lot from it. The register staff are all very friendly, kind and welcoming. Hannah Jennings - PACT Initial impressions are that there is potential to achieve some links for VAA approved adopters, but this is limited by the small numbers of children referred to the Register currently. Graham Pellow – Families for Children It’s still early days, but a positive response so far… It’s been a great opportunity to be able to view all children’s profiles. Sharon shares profiles from the register with our team and makes contact with the child’s social worker as appropriate.  It is also a great chance for us to update the workers from the register on any changes with our families. Jo Lee – Aoption Focus I found it really interesting and identified a number of possible links although nothing concrete has yet come of them.  I feel optimistic that we will make some good links. The register staff are lovely – very welcoming and very patient. Lorraine Jefferson – ARC NE

30. Develop value for regional agency delivery of concurrent planning via regional hubs The Idea: Concurrent planning has been championed by the IAAs and should be available to ALL children not a postcode lottery! Regionalisation is an opportunity to achieve this. A two pronged attack is needed – educating LA’s & Judiciary and advancing IAAs understanding of undertaking concurrent planning in new areas.

31. What we’ve achieved: • 5 agencies have decided to join the concurrent planning subscription scheme in order to develop  programmes to serve their local LAs in regions or consortia • Anna Sharkey - Adoption Focus • Shirley Elliott- PACT • Hayley Howlett- Coram East Midlands • Lynda Fletcher - Adopt Together • Alison Millar -St Francis • Joining the established providers: CCS, Barnardos, Coram Capital, Coram Cambridgeshire, Caritas Care & Adoption Matters • A training event for the staff of the five agencies will take place on 17th March, after which more individual support programmes will be developed.

32. And, we’ve launched new initiatives to develop commercial capability…

33. Developing Commercial Capacity Recognising we have a high number of adopters waiting to be matched & that we are able provide specialist support with our already established programmes As a sector, we are continually looking to develop our people & we have agencies who are specifically able to provide professional development programmes Supporting Adopters in Waiting Package Supporting Adoption Professionals

34. What we’ve done: • Providing CoramBAAF book vouchers to all of our agencies and adopters in waiting – vouchers being sent out late March • Created 180 complimentary workshop places for adopters in waiting • At the end of March, First4Adoptioin will be hosting a webinar aimed to help adopters who are waiting • 75 places on professional workshops • Plus, a Fundraising and Bid Writing Master Class

35. PLEASE ENSURE YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF • THESE SUPPORT PACKAGES • Encourage adopters to book places on the workshops & redeem their vouchers • Book your allocated professional workshops (only 2 agencies have booked so far – if you don’t want your places let me know so we can re-allocate them) & also use your vouchers!

36. Developing Future Capacity How fit are we for the regionalised era? How shall we build on the Child Friendly promise? Are we at the forefront of the Digital First generation? Are we in or out of Europe?

37. Plans in development for building future capacity Sales deck featuring USPs identified Practice Guide on YP participation groups by CoramBAAF Building the network of social media champions Briefing on the European position National offers on early placement and adoption support? The Adoptables tell-a-story programme Advancing peer support Cost calculator and fee modelling

38. What do we need for the future? Write down your thoughts on a post-it, pass to a marketing representative to put forward your suggestions at the Marketing Theme Session