How To Market the Alliance
For an organisation such as ours to succeed they need to master marketing and appealing to 4 or 5 people. Placement teams, social workers, young people, staff and landlords. We will now go through the first four of those.
How We Market to Placement Teams
Placement teams in the local authority are the gatekeepers to services, they decide which service to use and which not to use as well as when and why. They are responsible for coming out to investigate your organisation to ensure it meets the legal requirements that are necessary and the standards to place. If something goes wrong during your working relationship they are also the ones that will come to investigate. They need to run the local authority from a business perspectives which means that to appeal to them you need to look at things the same way.
The business mindset is: higher quality, lower cost. The first aspect that needs to be dealt with for them to be satisfied is the health and safety of the home and their young people.
This aspect of the service we have down to a T as we use a list that we cultivated and perfected over years that tells us everything we need and would need to put in place to allow the local authority to be happy. This is evidenced further through the various checks we conduct and the various forms we may have you fill such as fire safety, weekly room checks, sign in and out forms amongst others.
The second thing that we focus on is cost.
The second thing that we focus on is cost. Essentially our cost and our service can be broken down into two primary things everything else on top of that is simply additional. These two things are “Accommodation” and “Support” the prices of accommodation can usually be quite generic and is determined by the location of the house not necessarily the size of the room, and the support package is determined by the needs of the young person which varies from person to person. We use a multifaceted framework we designed to appeal to the local authority in terms of costing such as “our cash down system” and “multi placement leeway” as well as our “scale up to 18+ priority” scheme.
The local authority will pay for these two services separately on paper due to their changing nature per person And often times evidence is required to justify payment. Key working forms, key working codex independent skills and reports are used to justify our key working for young people which allows us to be paid but also justify what we are being paid for. And our weekly unit checks, room checks, unit inventory as well as various certificates are used to verify our accommodations. These forms are very important as not having them is the equivalent of paying out £1,000 for a tv but when you get home there’s only the power lead in the box with some sponge, you would rightly return to the shop and ask for your money back and likely would not accept an exchange as trust is broken. These forms are non-negotiable as they pay us to do a service, we as Infinity pay you, and nobody wants to give money back.
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The 3rd is bang for your buck!
Placement teams are often concerned by how much they are being given or is being given to young people in exchange for what they are paying. We are a premium quality service. While others may provide only a bed, wardrobe, and beside table for their young people, physically and digitally and technologically we designed a service that gives so much more.
Of course, we give in each room a bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers, beside table, desk, lamps and other essentials, we also add in a fridge in each room, smart TVs which has internet surfing capabilities, Pre paid for Netflix, Disney plus, Amazon prime, and various other streaming capabilities.
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On top of which we offer
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Home gym facilities
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Music studio recording facilities
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Gaming facilities
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Physical and digital libraries in the form of audible and books in the home,
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And Spotify which can be accessed on tvs and other devises.
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If that’s not enough;
Outside of the home we offer youth centre activities with activists including but not limited to.
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Music
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Martial arts and self defence
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Photography
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Sports such as football, basketball, dodgeball and others
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Good connections to refer them onto e.g. box up crime, etc.
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Activities such as a robust list of things they can do and engage in.
Alongside the more basic essential skills such as cooking and cleaning, making appointments and balancing finance, Our robust modernised key working programme incorporates supporting young people with essential things they are not otherwise taught such as
Driving (we hope that at least 60 percent of young people who leave us will go onto driving)
Understanding, using and building credit. We hope all our young people will eventually go onto buying a house.
In-house and partnered Education, Employment and Training programmes. Even having hired some of your young people to work as youth advocates for us.
And lastly our 18+ support which means that someone who has joined us from an early age would be fast tracked into our 18 plus support services reflect. And after that we are still finding ways to keep the cost of the service down. These are some of the reasons that we are chosen so often by placement teams.
The first thing that placement teams see if us is our brochure, statement of purpose and our website. Each of these are essential to display an aspect of our service to them in an appealing way. Our showreels evidence real and honest key working and the type of things we do with young people this is updated annually and we would like you our staff to feature in them. Our brochures display the thing above and more while our website reinforces all of these things to solidify the idea of who we are in their minds.
To verify all of this we have social workers feedback and young peoples feedback about working with us our impact and the type of service we’ve been successful in delivering.
Marketing to Social Workers
After placement teams come social worker a placement officer once approved and we are added to their system as available for placement will then send our details over to a social worker. That social worker will then look at us and what we are offering.
Their first interactions with us will likely be our showreels, our website and our brochure therefore it’s highly important to know what these say and what we claim to be offering to them.
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A social workers direct concerns are:
The care of their young person and their happiness as they don’t wish to move the child again. A social worker needs to see a unit which looks safe and secure and homely just like you would want any relatives or loved one of yours to live in. They need to see that it’s advanced and futuristic as well as offering more in order to keep us having an an edge over other placements.
They need to see staff which they can develop trust in. Friendly, approachable, helpful don’t forget that they will be judging you as the person who will be delivering the support and care to their young people, your capability in these situations will allow them to ascertain your level of training and knowledge in the job and the role therefore building or breaking confidence in you and the service.
You must know basics in order to have a competent conversation such as the laws and protocols surrounding working with children such as safeguarding, the Every child matters framework, methods of de- escalation and other things. You must also know the service and what we offer to young people. Beyond that we must know the process that young people will now follow now they have moved in as social workers will likely need answers to this question these are thing such as what emails will now be sent, what the young person can expect, what can the social worker now expect. You will also need to know a little bit about how the organisation formed and it’s core values and a. It about when you joined and how you find it.
The important thing here is about selling yourself and selling the service. These people pay us so they enable us to pay you. Doing well in this matter ends up benefiting you in the end.
The second way you will sell yourself and the service is in the way you do your job, are you following the moving in process which covers our backs and keeps things structured for them making their life and job easier. Is your report writing competent and informative, have you sent the update as to how the young person is doing before they do, is there a key working schedule and plan in place, what activities will the young person be doing. Social workers are like worried parents who has sent their children off to live with people they don’t yet know. Be sensitive to that and reassure them.
Are you able to predict the young persons needs and the social workers and put measure in place in advance of it?. taking worry and stress off of their mind. Are you able to speak to the young person professionally but also on an interpersonal and peer supportive level.
The most important thing you can do is ensure you do your job the way it was promised. The quality of key working and whether or not you can evidence the impact you claim to have had via forms and reports is how you fulfil your role but how you sell yourself the young person and the service is how you master it.
In the placement they should see everything that was promised in the brochures, the website the showreel. Which told them about the expected standard and quality from staffing quality, to equipment such as gym and TV, to key working and documentation all of this needs to be reinforced from the time they are even approaching the house.
Our brochures, our websites, our units, our staff and our preparation and planning in the form of effective processes such as moving in process and key working is how we market to them.
Marketing to Young People
The third people that this service absolutely must appeal to is young people. Unlike the two previous people it’s rare that a brochure is going to appeal to a young person or that they’d read it.
This means primarily them learning about us and likely the placement as well as setting up how this placement will likely go is that first initial interaction. It’s important to get this right. Remember they are people, more than that many of them are still classed as children. You trying too hard and being too eager is seen as you being disingenuous or clingy. Speak to them as a human being you just met, on a level, be relaxed, and friendly, have a conversation, listen to what they say, answer questions if you know the answer, if you don’t say you’ll find out and get back to them, offer them a meal as you recognise they may be hungry and likely didn’t have the time to think about that. This meal and your actions should let them know that you’re looking out for them and you have their back setting the tone of the placement.
Imagine it was you moving to a new place you don’t know or ever have been. Then imagine doing that likely with barely any support after losing your parents or having experienced abuse or have been in danger Don’t feel the need to prove yourself or over do it.
The second thing they are concerned by is what they can do here in the home. Let them select a room and give them a choice if there are multiple options available. Show them around letting them know what we have available, such as gym equipment, studio facilities, boxing and martial arts, make up and beauty equipment, audio books and Spotify, Disney plus, Netflix, Amazon prime etc. Show them the bathroom, kitchen, staff room and introduce them to other young people if you see any around. Let them know all that’s available including outside of the facility.
Their third concern is about their freedom. Let them know this isn’t a prison so likely they are free to come and go as they wish as long as it’s before curfew which will be decided by their social worker, outside of that they can freely go out, they are free to see friends and family go to work and college (depending on their needs and care plan). However if for some reason they are unreachable after curfew you have to call the police and report it as something serious could have happened and you wouldn’t know but also social services has told you you must or you get in trouble, that part is unideal however as the police will come and search through the unit and in their stuff which nobody wants and is unideal. However, let them know that ultimately their social worker is who decides and you can’t authorise anything unless the social worker authorises it first so they need to speak to them and get them to confirm (if before Pre placement meeting). Let them know that how much money they get when and how is something the social worker will let you know but you will chase it up and get back to them. The social worker will be the one that will let us know what you’re able to do such as staying out, however we don’t allow anyone to to stay over.
Like you or many people the young people are often concerned about those being around them and working with them being approachable and understanding as well as their desires being met. It’s important to not come across too passive when doing this as you don’t want to set a precedent that you’re a push over or will helplessly accept negative behaviour but also still be a level of friendly while being assertive.
After this let them settle in and gather themselves they will come to you if anything is urgently needed. Many people in their circumstance sometimes like to left alone or in peace without anyone being on their case. To discover whether this is the right thing to do requires you reading the situation and that young person. Maybe asking “would you like a minute to settle in by yourself now or do you want me to stay here with you for a little while and help. They will tell you what they want.
Some people are scared and hesitant to move as they may have never been in a semi independent before. Therefore they don’t know what to expect so is anxious or hesitant, they also may have been in placements before that didn’t work out so is curious as to whether or not this will turn out the same. Others just want to be at home. They want to feel safe and welcome.
Just let them know what is available to them, that you’re there to support them, and explain a little bit as to what they can expect moving forward such as a pre placement meeting where they can talk about rules and regulations as well as allowance as until that is done things are still a little bit up in the air but you and them are together in this so you will figure it out with them.
