Stoke-on-Trent project launches new ‘Stokie Street’ animations to share key health messages with the local community.
Together with a local animation company, VAST’s Community Health Champions project has launched a series of animations to help Stoke-on-Trent residents understand important health information and make informed decisions about their health, care, and wellbeing.
The videos, produced by Carse & Waterman Productions and voiced by members of the Community Health Champions network, share honest health- and wellbeing-related conversations between friends and neighbours to emphasise the value of communities coming together to support each other, resolve issues, and share concerns – capturing the spirit and ethos of the Community Health Champions Project.
The role of the Community Health Champions project includes listening to champions’ concerns, supporting them to address the needs of their community and filling the information gaps they identify. In response to this, the project worked closely with champions and local health and care practitioners to produce clear, accurate, and relatable video content for champions to share with the community to help them understand important health advice.
Community Health Champions is a network of city-based volunteers and trusted members of the community, many already operating within the voluntary sector in Stoke-on-Trent, who use their contacts and existing relationships to help local people understand the important, and all too often complex, health messages from local authorities and service providers.
“Often important health-related information and advice from the NHS, government, and local council is so complicated that vital messages are being missed.” Says Project Coordinator Zi Khumalo.
“The information is either too long, too complex, or just far too dreary to keep you reading. So, at Community Health Champions, we take that information back to basics, breaking it down, picking out the key messages, sharing simple advice, and getting rid of all the jargon. And that’s exactly what we’ve achieved with these animations.”
Released over the course of three months, these six animations centred around five key themes:
- Accessing Healthcare.
- Vaccinations and Boosters.
- Childhood Immunisations.
- Young People’s Mental Health.
- Getting Active and Using Green Spaces.
As they were released, the animations were accompanied by transcripts, additional resources, and details of local organisations that can provide services, activities, and support to residents in Stoke-on-Trent. The animations (listed below) aim to provide clear advice and are both simple and realistic conversations that highlight the issues they focus on, in a format that is engaging, memorable, and easy to understand.
- Young people’s mental health: sharing information, advice, support, and useful resources for young people, parents, and carers who are supporting or worried about a young person.
- Childhood immunisations: providing crucial information on immunisations for children and how they can protect babies and children from serious illness.
- Vaccines and boosters: providing information and advice on the benefits of COVID-19 boosters and, flu and pneumonia jabs to reassure people and help address local vaccine hesitancy.
- Telephone appointments and changes to primary care (GP services): sharing information on changes to doctors’ appointments, how to access primary care services, and to reassure residents that telephone appointments can be just as effective and more convenient than a face-to-face appointment.
- Fresh air and exercise: sharing information on the benefits to physical and mental health of getting out and about in the fresh air and connecting with nature by spending time in green spaces.
- NHS 111: sharing information and advice from the NHS’ ‘Think 111 First’ campaign, like how to access urgent care, health advice, prescription information, emergency dental services, and the best ways to get the most appropriate care and support.
“We’re so grateful to Carse & Waterman Productions for helping us to create these amazing animations,” said Strategic Projects Manager, Charlotte Bennett.
“Thanks to their creativity, and to our dedicated Community Health Champions who recorded the voiceovers, we’ve been able to get these important health messages into the community in the most engaging way possible.”
“We’re always looking for creative and engaging ways to connect with the community and make sure they’re getting the information they need, that’s why we’re thrilled with the final result! They’re absolutely fantastic and all the videos have been very well received by champions and communities alike.”
To find out more about the Community Health Champions project, please click here.
