Award for project encouraging young people to avoid abusive relationships
Thursday 14 September 2017
A PROJECT designed by a University of Salford academic helping young people in the city steer clear of abusive relationships has won a prestigious award.
The Change Up programme, run by social marketing agency Social Sense in collaboration with an academic from the University of Salford, won the Social Marketing Campaign of the Year Award at the 2017 UK Public Sector Communications Awards.
Dr Michaela Rogers, Lecturer in Social Work at the University, worked as a consultant to help design the project, in which outreach workers visited schools across the city to help young people recognise the signs of abusive relationships that can lead to domestic violence.
She also wrote an independent evaluation of the project, which was funded by the Salford Clinical Commissioning Group, using data collected by the agency, providing the evidence to enable the programme to be used elsewhere.
Speaking at the award ceremony,which celebrated UK campaigns that have generated social impact and behaviour change, former TV presenter and host Andy Crane said: “This is a well evidenced programme that could be replicated across other parts of the UK.”
Dr Rogers said: “This is an important programme, enabling young people to understand what a healthy relationship is and to empower them to steer clear of abusive relationships.“
It was a real honour to have provided the evidence base for this campaign, which potentially could mean that it can go on to be replicated in other parts of the UK, and to see my research having a genuine impact on the lives of young people.”
Social Sense managing director Gary Lovatt said: “This campaign meant a great deal to us as a team being in our home city of Salford and covering such an important topic.
"The approach embraced some excellent partnership working, most centrally placed of all the young people who inspired us throughout with their creativity and energy.
“We are grateful once again to Salford CCG, The University of Salford and the participating schools for their incredible support throughout. This award is for everyone who believed in the direction of the project and worked so hard to achieve the excellent outcomes it had.”
Councillor Lisa Stone, lead member for children’s and young people’s services at Salford City Council said:“Salford City Council’s youth services team worked with Social Sense and the University of Salford to promote healthy family and teenage relationships. Our aim was to help young people recognise and steer clear of abusive teenage relationships which can lead to domestic abuse.
“We did this through ‘social norming’ – showing young people what a healthy relationship should be. Social Sense has previously used this to address issues like smoking and teenage pregnancy in Salford and this project tested out whether this approach would work on relationships amongst young people.
“Salford City Council is keen to support innovative approaches to tackling issues with young people where we can measure the impact of the work.”
