Outreach Toolkit for Recruiting Black Adopters

Outreach Toolkit for Adoption Agencies - Black Adopters

Outreach Toolkit for Adoption Agencies - Black Adopters ( PDF, 5.18 MB)

Background

Outreach is an integral part of the specialist #YouCanAdopt campaign aimed at Black African and Black Caribbean communities, to help break down barriers and motivate people to consider adoption.

Due COVID-19 restrictions we were unable to carry out face-to-face engagement as part of the pilot campaign. We pivoted our approach to focus on remote engagement with faith leaders and community organisations. This approach had some success in terms of achieving an overwhelmingly positive response to the campaign from faith leaders and community organisations that were engaged and reached over 210,000.

However, it was challenging to activate some of the support into meaningful action due to the changing COVID-19 restrictions which impacted their day-to-day operations and priorities.

Moving forward with the easing of restrictions and building on learnings from the pilot, it is recommended that an always on approach is best suited to engaging faith and community organisations to provide a more flexible way of working. Face-to-face engagement in areas with a high Black population is also recommended as this is a more effective way to reach and engage people in community spaces through direct conversations which will be a core feature of this year’s campaign.

Introduction

This toolkit is for Regional Adoption Agencies, Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Local Authorities and other key stakeholders who are keen to devise and implement outreach programmes in their local areas. The toolkit provides helpful information, advice and tips to support recruitment drives.

The information provided in this toolkit is relevant to engaging any underrepresented groups, however, it has been prepared with the lens of the #YouCanAdopt Black adopters campaign.

Overview of this year's campaign

Building on the learnings from the pilot campaign we will focus on:

Trusted Voices

Recruiting case studies - individuals or couples that have adopted children - who can share their experience in an authentic way. We will also work with adoption experts and social workers, who’ll be able to explain the process and requirements for adoption as well highlight the support available.

PR and Media Partnerships

Amplifying adoption stories during key calendar months throughout the year, for example, during the summer months when the street teams have been activated and during October to coincide with National Adoption Week and Black History Month. We will also generate further exposure, by creating editorial media packages with Black TV, radio and print outlets.

Culturally Relevant Podcasters and Social Partnerships

Galvanising communities by working with key podcasters and social platforms that will help to keep the adoption narrative present and relevant to our target communities throughout the year.

Community and Engagement Outreach

Onboarding national community groups, professional networks, women’s groups, faith groups (Christian and Muslim) to engage communities at a grassroots level. This will be supported with street team activity in the West Midlands and the North West.

Definition of Outreach

We define outreach as an active process of engaging a target community around an issue of concern, through personal relationships, credible information, trusted voices and networks.

Importance of Outreach

Where other forms of communication typically aim to raise awareness or influence attitudes through frequent and broadcast means, outreach is much more targeted and localised, using powerful personal interaction to create dialogue to overcome barriers and change minds. Outreach can help form a bridge between communities and the adoption services, addressing myths or wrongly-held perceptions through conversations and first-hand experience.

Purpose

Techniques

Audiences

Often involves communicating a specific message

● Designed to address under-representation or perceived barriers to conventional channels of communications in relation to minority groups

● Designed to have significant impact on an individual, changing attitudes or behaviour

● Designed to build trust

Proactive, making an effort to seek out members of the target audience rather than waiting for enquiries to come in

● Tapping into their events and channels rather expecting them to attend your events

● Involves face-to-face or remote one-to-one contact to create dialogue, better achieved alongside other media

● Uses community advocates to build credibility

Specific audiences usually because of cultural, faith or language barriers

● Those reluctant to engage with adoption services

There are different approaches that you can deploy as part of outreach, which include:

Street Marketing

• One-off face-to-face contact in everyday community spaces • Requires a well-informed and sometimes a multilingual team

Community Events

• Involvement in existing community events • Guaranteed audience but needs a culturally competent speaker

Community Networking, Roundtables and Seminars

• Developing trusting relationships with groups/individuals • Powerful tool for getting buy-in with key influencers and for co-creation opportunities

Remote Engagement During COVID-19 Restrictions

• Requires building relationships with trusted groups/ individuals and that have established routes into the communities • Groups and individuals need to fully support the issue to encourage engagement

LIMITATIONS OF OUTREACH APPROACHES

Often relies on charismatic, multi-skilled individuals and long-term personal relationships. If these people move on, there can be a gap that is difficult to fill.
Outreach depends on relationships and goodwill; it can be damaged by external events or insensitive treatment of someone in the community by another part of the adoption service.
Can take a long time to develop trust to the level needed to access the community. For example, some groups many be suspicious of authority or require months of patient work before opening their networks to an outsider. Therefore, an always on approach is far more effective.
Can be difficult to set up and maintain without specialist help.
Can be hard to measure as the impacts are generally localised, long term and qualitative.
May need messages and propositions to be adjusted to suit outreach to give focus for people doing the engagement.
Though not necessarily an obstacle, some outreach approaches are not as amenable to tight control as other forms of communications. It is most effective when there is flexibility to tailor further to different audiences.

THINGS TO BE AWARE OF

Utilising your existing Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff to engage others in the community is most effective but only if they are willing and it shouldn’t just be their responsibility. It’s important to integrate diversity and inclusion into everyone’s role in order to achieve cultural change within the sector.
Get to understand cultural nuances – for example, mosques are largely used by men, however, some mosques have a separate section for women. Therefore, care should be taken to match the gender of the predominant audience you’ll be engaging in that space.
Dress modestly, especially in places of worship. In some places, such as mosques women will be required to cover their hair and also the removal of shoes is required too.Check the English language proficiency of your audience so you will know if you need interpreters.
Outreach is much more effective when it’s part of a wider visible paid or earned campaign, it creates a strong backdrop that serves a good reference point when engaging communities.

Cultural and Religious Festivals

Planning ahead and understanding the right times to connect with Black, Asian and minority ethnic audiences is important. Target audiences need to be in the right mindset and open to information and education. Understanding the role and meaning of key festivals and dates will help assess whether they are appropriate times for messaging, and what types of messaging would be suitable and welcomed.

For example:

Festival periods such as Christmas, Easter and Eid are good times to simply connect with the community and wish them well.
The period before these festivals, as respective communities prepare for the festivities, are times when engagement and education using culturally appropriate messaging can work well.
The summer months see a lot of local community events and festivals which provides strong and effective vehicles for face-to-face engagement and discussion.
Black History Month coincides with National Adoption Week in October and is a key calendar moment to acknowledge, celebrate the contribution of the Black adopters.

Key Channels for Outreach

Outreach is best used in tandem with a well targeted paid and earned campaign to help raise awareness of the issue in advance of or alongside the outreach work.

UMBRELLA ORGANISATIONS

There are a number of umbrella organisations that are well placed to coordinate, identify and support local community groups and faith organisations with networks and facilities e.g. venues and events to support outreach within communities. Broadly speaking they are more likely than individual groups to have capacity and resources to manage stakeholder relationships.

COMMUNITY REPRESENTATIVES’ VS COMMUNITY LEADERS

It’s important to note that national and local organisations often have self-appointed leaders with their own specific agendas, and therefore care should be taken in relying exclusively on their views. Tip: Always aim to recruit a wide range of community representatives from different spheres rather than rely on one or two people.

FAITH LEADERS

Faith leaders (Pastors, Imams etc.) are key influencers for those who are religious. Their support can provide access to their congregations and provide religious interpretation of adoption which can provide effective supplementary messages for your audience.

COMMUNITY AND VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS

There are many organisations that provide advice, information and advocacy for the community and have high levels of trust and contact with the community.

COMMUNITY INFLUENCERS

There are many community spirited individuals who regularly convene events within the community such as event promoters who are also well placed to provide speaking opportunities at their events or co-creation opportunities.

LOCAL SPECIALIST MEDIA

Local specialist media tend to be active at a grassroots level. It’s always worth approaching them to explore paid and earned opportunities as well community networks they have access to that can be leveraged over and above media activity. Tip: a mapping exercise to identify regional and local organisations, media and individuals is a great starting point. It is important to consider working in partnership with the organisation from the start and not just use them solely as a distribution channel

Key considerations for those delivering effective outreach

People involved need to be culturally competent, have cultural awareness and sensitivity based either on a willingness to listen and learn or from their own direct experience.

Having language skills or access to help in communicating with people who have low levels of proficiency in English.

Straightforward factual messages i.e. explaining the requirements and process of adoption can be credibly delivered by experts regardless of their background but they need to be culturally competent - have an understanding and appreciation of the cultural barriers. To increase impact, pairing an expert with a case study from the community is a very powerful way to engage.

Crucially important is the personality and confidence of the team, in terms of having integrity and honesty in how they deal with the community, persistence in forming and developing networks and contacts, and skills to make proactive contact with individuals and groups.

Techniques and Skills required – this can inform the role of an outreach manager

There are a number of techniques and skills required for the individuals carrying out outreach work. This includes:

‘Mapping’ of communities in an area, the needs and issues that affect them
Language skills or access to support for translation/interpretation
Cultural and faith understanding
Listening skills
Personal contacts list of individuals and groups
Flexibility and adaptability
Something to offer, to demonstrate respect for time and effort made
Professional outlook and objective, to provide a clear rationale for involvement and dispel suspicion about motives
Contact with umbrella groups – a more stable point of contact than individuals or small community groups
Senior level trust, support and patience to be able to create breathing space to develop over a period of months or years
Personality: Courage/confidence in talking to large groups and persistence and patience to reap the benefits

Example of how to kickstart engagement

It is advised that communications with faith leaders, organisations and individuals is started with email communication to introduce yourself, organisation and campaign. This should be quickly followed up with a phone call to check willingness to engage. If they are willing to engage you should try to get a commitment to have a meeting to discuss in more detail.