When the Prime Minister Andy Burnham put social care at the centre of political debate, we worked with the mental health and carers charity Gaddum to bring the lived experiences of unpaid carers in Greater Manchester into the national conversation through meaningful media coverage.
Gaddum helps people influence the services, policies, and systems affecting their lives. Its peer-support sessions and focus groups also give carers a place to connect, share their experiences, and help develop practical resources.
Across the UK, 5.8 million people provide unpaid care, including 1.7 million who provide more than 50 hours each week. That care has an estimated annual value of £184 billion. Greater Manchester is home to an estimated 280,000 unpaid carers, although the true figure may be higher because many people do not identify themselves as carers.
The challenge – Securing significant media attention
Gaddum believes unpaid carers deserve greater recognition, support, and investment. Our challenge was to bring the experiences of the carers it supports to a much wider audience through meaningful media coverage.
This meant finding a way for carers to tell their own stories, while connecting their experiences to the national news agenda.
Our approach – Story telling through case study testimonials
We built the campaign around the voices of unpaid carers.
Working closely with the Gaddum team, we identified people who felt comfortable sharing their experiences publicly. We then held in-depth conversations with them, gathering the background journalists would need to understand their stories and the changes they wanted to see.
Those conversations revealed a clear message. Carers felt let down by the current social care system. They wanted a system that met people’s needs, alongside greater awareness and recognition of “hidden carers” balancing work, family life and caring responsibilities.
We used their experiences and words to create a press release and a targeted media pitch. We also organised an event where journalists could film individual or group interviews with carers in a supportive setting.
The pitch secured the interest of the team at BBC North West Tonight who attended the event to interview carers for Politics North West, BBC North West Tonight and an online article.
Results & impact
The coverage across Politics North West, BBC North West Tonight and BBC News online achieved an estimated 1.11 million views.
More importantly, it gave unpaid carers a platform to speak directly about the realities of caring and the changes they wanted to see. The coverage reflected Gaddum’s commitment to helping carers shape change, while raising awareness of the charity’s peer-support work.
By putting lived experience at the heart of the story, the campaign introduced Gaddum and its work to a wider audience, strengthened the charity’s visibility and gave unpaid carers valuable recognition.
For more information about the services we provide to our other clients, please see here.
If you would like PR and communications support to gain coverage for your charity or business please don’t hesitate to reach out.