Social Sense’s Change Up programme has won the Social Marketing Campaign of the Year Award at the 2017 UK Public Sector Communications Awards.

Held at the Montcalm Hotel located in the classy Marble Arch district of London last night, the awards brought together talented agencies, providers, and government bodies to celebrate UK campaigns that have generated social impact and behaviour change in 2017.

On announcing the award, Ex-TV Presenter and host Andy Crane said of the health relationships campaign: “This is a well evidenced programme that could be replicated across other parts of the UK.”

This follows a successful year in which in 2016, Social Sense was also nominated and won the Social Marketing campaign of the year award with its RU Different? programme.

Managing Director of Social Sense, Gary Lovatt said the team were delighted with winning the award.

“This campaign meant a great deal to us as a team being in our home city of Salford and covering a such an important topic.

The approach embraced some excellent partnership working, most centrally placed of all the young people who inspired us throughout with their creativity and energy.

We are grateful once again to Salford CCG, The University of Salford and the participating schools for their incredible support throughout. This award is for everyone who believed in the direction of the project and worked so hard to achieve the excellent outcomes it had.”

Councillor Lisa Stone, lead member for children’s and young people’s services said:

“Salford City Council’s youth services team worked with Social Sense and the University of Salford to promote healthy family and teenage relationships. Our aim was to help young people recognise and steer clear of abusive teenage relationships which can lead to domestic abuse.

We did this through ‘social norming’ – showing young people what a healthy relationship should be. Social Sense has previously used this to address issues like smoking and teenage pregnancy in Salford and this project tested out whether this approach would work on relationships amongst young people. Salford City Council is keen to support innovative approaches to tackling issues with young people where we can measure the impact of the work.”

Dr Michaela Rogers, Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Salford, said: “This is an important programme, enabling young people to understand what a healthy relationship is and to empower them to steer clear of abusive relationships.

“It was a real honour to have provided the evidence base for this campaign, which potentially could mean that it can go on to be replicated in other parts of the UK, and to see my research having a genuine impact on the lives of young people.”

A popular winner on the night was Greater Manchester Police, who won the Crisis Communications Campaign of the Year, for Managing Manchesters darkest hour (GMPs response to the Manchester Arena attack). All the other winners can be found here:

http://www.publicsectorcommunicationsawards.co.uk/winners

By Reece Hobson.