Support Using Social Networking, Virtual Worlds and Social Media

Chat with parents a

nd advisors

Audio support guides and parent stories

Share your thoughts and opinions

Upload your video story and watch others’ Attend parent meetings and 1-2-1 sessions from your PC

• Project funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.• Goal to expand our reach in supporting parents of disabled children using technology.• At the time of launch, our project was considered experimental in our use of social media and virtual worlds as outcomes were unknown.• The idea was to be visible where people are choosing to communicate daily and to test new ways of using innovative technology to provide information and support to parents.• We exceeded our target of 11,750 parents helped by 351% (41,249) through online one-to-one support, podcasts downloads, webpage accesses and videos views.• After evaluating the services using parent feedback and usage statistics, the DCSF have decided to continue funding Innovations for a further two years.

Innovations 08/09

Facebook | Social NetworkingGiving parents with disabled children a place to find others going through a similar situation to their own and receive advice from our helpline. Our work has since been complimented by Randi Zuckerberg, marketing director of initiatives such as ‘Non-Profits on Facebook’.

• Parents leave messages on our page to meet other fans or seek advice.

• Our Parent Adviser then gets in touch with links to services , local groups and benefits information.

…it’s good to meet others in the same situation and we

always go on some great days out. Well done to you and the

families…

Facebook | Social NetworkingAs of April 2009, we have 1200+ fans (87% female, 13% male – the majority within the 25-34 and 35-44 year age bracket)

…I have received support from other

parents and even have become friends

through using Contact a Family on Facebook…

…anything that highlights the plights of disabled families has got to be a

great thing and just knowing there is support helps a great deal whether we

choose to use it or not…

…my daughter has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, she has

very poor mobility and behavioural problems. Life is tough so I would love to chat to others in a similar

position…

Feedback from Parents

Types of Queries

…does anyone know of any events around the Chester area? All the info I get through the

post is for Crewe which is too far to travel…

I’m from Care Co-Ordination Network UK,

would you please recommend our page to your members? We’re

new to Facebook, partly inspired by your page!

iTunes | Social Media/PodcastingYou can find our podcasts in the iTunes Store, download them for free, keep them forever and play them on your portable MP3 player. On iTunes, we have 2800+ subscribers and our podcasts have been downloaded over 12,000 times.

• Contact a Family are rated #71 in the Top Non-Profits Audio Podcasts in the iTunes Store.

• It’s easy to find us in the iTunes Store, just type ‘Contact a Family’ in the search box on the top right

Twitter | Social Networking/BlogWith 1800+ followers, Twitter is becoming a more popular way for us to communicate with parents and other organisations.

• Parents can ‘tweet’ us a message and we can tweet back with advice either publicly or privately. You can take part in any conversation that you find interesting and follow other who you wish to talk to often.

• Updates, links to news stories, opinion, conversation and debate all take place on Twitter.

• Whether we are directly giving parents advice or rallying support of a marathon, Twitter helps get our message (potentially) the world over.

YouTube | Video/Social MediaOur videos feature parent interviews, information on support and presentations from campaign groups. Since starting, we’ve had 21,000+ video views (47% male 53% female), #43 most viewed non-profit of all time.

• Parents can comment on our videos as well as upload their own videos to our channel.• Our most popular videos are the 4-part parent interview series showing honest accounts of family experiences in raising a disabled child.

Second Life | Virtual WorldsA place for parents to have a one-to-one chat with our parent adviser and meet others who are in a similar situation to their own in an interactive way.

• Read our wide range of publications.

• Sit down with a cup of tea and have voice and text conversations with real people as your avatar.

• Thousands of visitors have come to the office since we launched and it has been featured in The Guardian and the Second Life Showcase.

Innovations – The future…

Innovations 2009-11

Consortium partnerships for

Innovations 2ACE

Children’s Legal Centre

Family Rights Group

Contact a Family

Gingerbread

Netmums

Parentline Plus

Young MindsTribal

Digital fundraising

VoIP (Skype)

Expansion of digital media content (podcasts

and videos)

Partnerships with Facebook for application

development.

Social networking widget

Social advertising/Digital

marketing

Social networking co-ordinated events (i.e.

Twestival)

New goal of reaching 1 million parents

£2.5 million over two years awarded to winning consortium

Wind-down of less effective services?

Extend reach into tech-savvy parent segments

Improve collaboration between private and third sector organisation to build

capacity in the parenting field.

Diversify current provision, creating additional information and support services for newly identified hard to reach target groups.

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