Carers As The Experts: Re-branding The Fostering And Adoption Service

The problem:

• Falling numbers of carers.

• The service is not attracting the right carers.

• Poor image for the children's service.

Goals:

To increase the number of carers:

We want to raise the profile of the fostering and adoption service in Newham and throughout London, distinguishing our offer from our competitors, specifically in neighbouring boroughs.

Improve the quality of looked-after children’s placements:

To connect with new potential carers and to connect on an emotional level to ensure carers are able to offer emotional support and a compassionate home for children who need it.

What I did:

Focus groups:

I chose to run groups in order to discover what attracted this group of carers to fostering and adoption. I also used their feedback on re-branding designs, using them as the experts. I used focus groups instead of directed interviews because of time-constraints.

Outcome:

Their feedback was invaluable. I discovered consensus around, for example, the following :

• Remove mention of financial package.

• Unlike in other boroughs, you can work full-time and also foster in Newham - which is a key selling point.

• Mention that there is a fostering support group which is independent and peer-to-peer.

• They felt mention of the 24 hour support by the service was misleading.

• Messaging to evoke a sense of community and emotion.

"I don't foster to get rich, I do it to give back to my community"

"The mention of fostering for money is upsetting for the children"

As a result of the research gathered in this focus group, myself and a designer creating a new set of brand guidelines for the fostering adoption service.

Reflection:

One of the major challenges of this project was recruiting carers to take part. In future projects, I would like to do more focus groups and/or directed interviews with a larger sample size in order to gather more in-depth responses and from that create both personas, which would greatly help in targeted marketing but also journey maps. In order to recruit more carers to take part, incentives would most likely have to be given. I would also like to conduct more directed interviews, as in a group respondents may be less truthful than in a one-to-one setting.