It’s not often you see something that borders on greatness but the Sefton Council fostering video does just that.
The 1 minute 13 second video is based on a lad called ‘Josh’ who explains why he is looking for a foster family. His name was changed to protect his identity.
He’d like to feel like he is part of a family again with a Mum, Dad and maybe a dog.
He lives in a children’s home in Manchester and its a long way away from the school he attends. So far, in fact, that he falls asleep.
The video uses the audio of the child but an animation of the child talking so no GDPR and personal data issues
The video is here:
Listen to the real-life story of Josh from Sefton (Name changed)
Josh is currently in children’s residential care and tells us how he would love to be part of a foster family. #FCF19 #changeafutureCould you foster someone like Josh?https://t.co/36OLZl0YvP pic.twitter.com/2hQSVlwTUj
— Sefton Council (@seftoncouncil) May 24, 2019
Why borderline greatness?
A quick disclaimer: I helped train Sefton Council along with my colleague Steven Davies on the basics of video.
The video is beautifully human. It’s not stats and its not data. It’s a real human talking a bit about their story. It hits the mark beautifully.
As content it works wonderfully. Posted to Twitter and to Facebook the content is well placed.
To be truly, truly great, it would be useful to first find out how many people asked about being a foster carer and then became one as the result of the video. The second step is to check how much money is saved by recruiting a foster carer. Often this is a five-figure sum.
Of course, the process for recruiting a foster carer isn’t straight forward. It involves meetings, persuasion and time for reflection. It’s a mix of comms PLUS fostering and adoption and the evaluation and resulting credit needs to reflect that.