Participation in Action: Short films tell the stories of young people's care journeys
Adam Offord
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Young people in care are creating short films to depict their experiences and raise awareness of how many young people are in the care system.
Provider NYAS
Name Digital Life Stories
There were 69,540 looked-after children in England and Wales as of the 31 March 2015 according to Department for Education data. That is the number of online shares that charity NYAS (formerly the National Youth Advocacy Service) wants to hit with its "Digital Life Stories" films, which have been created by young people in care.
The national project, which has been funded by the Big Lottery Fund "Reaching Communities" programme with a grant of £330,000, aims to give young people a chance to express their feelings about being in the care system through six online films about their experiences.
Adam Wheatley, project lead and participation worker at NYAS, says the decision to create digital life stories came after the charity identified that those in care need to be able to express themselves.
"Instead of just putting a questionnaire in front of a young person or doing an interview we were looking at creating ways that we could engage with young people," he says.
He explains that short films seemed like the best way of engaging a youth audience because video can be so easily shared online.
So far NYAS has worked with two groups of young people in care to create two short films. The first group was made up of 10 young people between the ages of 12 and 22 living in the Merseyside area.
NYAS teamed up with production company Vivid Echo, who put on a two-day introductory session for the young people to build on their camera and acting skills and to brainstorm ideas.
Once they had their idea the young people created scripts and storyboards and then spent four days filming their story over a range of different locations.
"The Digital Life Story is real life," Wheatley explains. "It tells the story of how three young people from different backgrounds and circumstances deal with being taken from their homes and put into care.
"The intention of the film is to demonstrate the effect it can have on a young person to those who may have little or no experience of the care system.
"It is providing them with the means to talk about their feelings and giving them the confidence to talk to their social workers and to engage with other programmes."
The second group was made up of 13 young people from East Sussex, Surrey, Bedford and the outskirts of London.
NYAS is now looking to create the third film with looked-after children in Birmingham and the surrounding areas and it has teamed up with production company Chocolate Films.
"Obviously it is great we have the outcome as a video but we also want to see skills, educational and emotional-based benefits [for young people], so we need to pick the right production company that will bring out the best in young people," says Wheatley.
The charity still has three more films to create over the next 18 months with children in care from other parts of the country to follow the Birmingham cohort.
Wheatley says the charity and the young people involved in creating the films "really want to highlight" the DfE statistic for the number of children in care by reaching the same number in online shares because it is a "staggering number".
He adds that in September NYAS will also be launching a mobile phone app and website so that looked-after children across England can apply and engage with projects. "We are trying to make it easier for young people as it is difficult getting the word out," he says.
