Solent University have been founding partners for Street Support in Southampton. They have hosted several conferences on homelessness and provided work placements to help the work of Street Support.

This year, Solent University offered us the chance to pitch to their final year Social Media students. The ask was for a group of students to create a local social media campaign on a single issue. The pitch went well and a group of five students took on the challenge of working with Street Support in Southampton.

Paul Woodman gave an initial briefing to the students outlining the vision for Southampton to be a place where no-one needs to sleep rough or beg.  He talked about the need to raise people’s awareness of the services that already exist in Southampton and the specialist support that is available as well as the need to add more partners into the work of Street Support.

At the next meeting, the students came up with the idea of a split-screen for the story: one side showing a person on the streets and the other side showing them in their own home. Paul suggested having a female lead character and then, suggested we meet some people with lived experience to build the idea of the story.

With Project Leader, Claire Stagg from the Two Saints Day Centre, the team generated ideas about the split screen and what would be shown. We agreed on braving the elements, getting a drink when you wanted one rather than when one was given to you and to focus on a positive end result also including hygienic drug use and ability to make medical appointments and access medicine.

Paul Woodman provided ethical consent to the University for the project to include the re-enactment of drug use and the project was approved by the lecturer, Martin Hughes.

Emma’s story was reflective of a woman’s experience (different name), known to the Day Centre, and she gave permission for her story to be told using the split screen. We were all aware that it was a tall order to ask the students to depict this story on video with an actor, without the help of people with lived experience. So, we set the scene of Emma sleeping rough at the Day Centre itself. This enabled those with lived experience to set up the props and scenery to be realistic to their experience. One helper was very pleased with how authentic it looked and was himself taken back to his own memories of days of sleeping rough and substance abuse. He was supported through this painful recollection of his own life story.

The end result was a very powerful short video. Commenting on the video and process:

Emma-Louise: “Working with Street Support and Two Saints gave us an in-depth insight into the life of someone who has experienced homelessness. Being guided by someone with lived experience helped us to accurately highlight various difficulties a person who is homeless may experience; in conjunction with the help support services can provide. Spreading awareness of the different services the partners of Street Support can provide is vital in the pathway to helping others.”