We worked with a Greater Manchester youth charity to help care-experienced young people find their voice, telling their stories in an innovative comic book format which attracted widespread media attention.
Greater Manchester Youth Network’s (GMYN) key focus is supporting young people aged 10 to 25 who face challenges, including young people with experience of the care system.
One of GMYN’s key missions is to give young people a voice and an audience to influence change and tackle stigmas and stereotypes.
GMYN does this by giving young people the opportunity to share their voices and lived experiences. One of the ways the youth charity achieves this is by involving young people in creative projects.
The Hear My Voice project saw a group of care experienced young people take part in a series of creative workshops run by GMYN.
During the workshops the young people spoke about their time in the care system and created clay avatars to represent key figures or experiences from their personal journeys. The avatars were then brought to life by artist Paul Pickford in a comic book that was then printed.
The challenge: Securing significant media attention
Our challenge was to ensure the Hear My Voice comic book, and the young people’s voices that shaped it, reached a wide audience by securing significant media attention.
Our PR approach: Story telling through case study testimonials
At the heart of our strategy was amplifying the voices of the young people behind the comic book to ensure their stories were heard.
To do this we carried out in-depth interviews with three of the young people involved in the project and used their inspiring stories to form the basis of a press release we sent to broadcast, print and online media outlets.
The press release received significant media interest. On the back of that interest, we arranged media interviews with the care leavers to allow them to tell their stories in person.
Results
The media response was overwhelmingly positive, achieving coverage across prominent outlets such as ITV and the BBC.
We secured coverage on Granada Reports and BBC Radio Manchester. Care experienced young people supported by GMYN were interviewed for a TV feature and on the radio, given them the opportunity to have their voices heard by tens of thousands of people.
BBC Radio Manchester reaches approximately 400,000 listeners, while around 52,000 households watch Granada Reports.
We also secured print and online coverage. These included interviews in Salford Now and a piece in About Manchester. ITV also published an online article including clips from the TV feature and a backlink to the GMYN website that drove web traffic.
Impact
The media coverage highlights GMYN’s key values and mission to give young people a voice, while raising awareness of the projects the charity runs and how they benefit the young people it supports.
The coverage also meant GMYN reached a wider audience and significantly boosted its visibility. The increased visibility engaged new supporters and will help increase opportunities for future funding with the potential to influence high value donors and lead to sponsorship and investment opportunities as well as public donations.
Organisations across the North West, including Salford CVS (Community and Voluntary Services) and Nugent Care in Liverpool, saw the media coverage and asked for copies of the comic book to share with their leadership teams.
After seeing the media coverage members of the public also contacted GMYN to request a copy of the book that is now available on GMYN’s website with a recommended donation of £10.
The Hear My Voice comic, and the extensive media coverage it attracted, elevated the general public’s knowledge of GMYN, giving the charity the recognition it deserves.
Feature image by Richard Tymon for GMYN.