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Youth Voice Homeless Prevention DVD

Filming a DVD to raise awareness in schools about homelessness.

Who Took Part

Members of Youth Voice in Newcastle developed the ideas and more than a dozen young people took part in the filming. Most were either homeless or formerly homeless.

Purpose

The DVD was to be used to raise awareness in schools of the causes of homelessness, what to do if it happened to you or a friend and the choices and support available.

What Happened

Several initial ideas meetings were held with Youth Voice who are based in Gosforth. The cheese sandwiches were a fantastic spur to good ideas!

Two days of filming then took place around Newcastle.

• Interviews were recorded in the Foyer in Newcastle, where young people spoke with great honesty about why they became homeless, the mistakes they had made as well as the ways they’d discovered solutions and moved on.
• Housing support staff there to help young people described what their jobs were
• Different options for housing were filmed
• Younger passers-by were interviewed with their views on homelessness – this illustrated that most people had a narrow fairly stereotyped view of the issue. This left young people unprepared for the possibility it might happen to them and what might follow.

Results

The valuable information was divided up with a menu of labels so that people could find the part which might be of most use to them.

• What does a homeless person look like?
• What is homelessness?
• Our experiences
• What to do
• Options if under 16
• Options if 16 or over
• Living independently: good and bad things
• Getting Help
• Our Advice
• Youth Voice
• Thank Yous

A graphics style was devised based on crumpled lined writing paper and doodles to create a mood of jotting down notes.

Sharing the Results with Others

The DVD is available for use in classrooms, to be used as part of a presentation and discussion. Youth Voice provides young people to lead or take part in the session. The overall duration is just over 20 minutes – the separate sections are usually a couple of minutes to view.

Benefits for Participants

The project took Youth Voice members through the process of developing a DVD, beginning with the importance of clarifying the audience. Then the structure of the DVD was developed with them. The opportunity to take part in interviews was taken by a large number of young people who learned how time consuming this can be and what can go wrong – such as a fire alarm meaning the Foyer had to be evacuated! Several members had the experience of recording the voiceover. The project was not intended to provide media production skills and so did not include hands-on camera operation or editing.

Client and/or Funder

The client was Your Homes Newcastle. An initial briefing session took place to agree their aims and the best ways to achieve these.

Who Else Would Benefit from this sort of Project?

Groups of all types with a message they wish to convey.

How to Find Out More

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