3 minute read
THE GOOD SAMARITAN / Podcasts With A Social Conscience
JASON REED FROM LEAP UK & THE STOP AND SEARCH PODCAST SPEAKS TO THE PEOPLE BEHIND PODCASTS FROM THE CHARITY AND CAUSES SECTOR
Dan Maudsley is the senior producer of the BBC Sounds podcast, Finding Britain’s Ghost Children, he is also co-founder of Listen United Media, Dan explains why we need greater awareness of the many missing children from our schools after the pandemic.
As Covid subsided and schools returned to normal, many of the children who previously attended weren’t there. The then 100,000 severely absent pupils in England – those missing more than 50% of sessions – began to be referred to as ‘ghost children’.
The spark for this story was the terrible death of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo Hughes at the hands of his father and stepmother. There was such a huge reaction to his case that it left a deep impression on all of us who covered it at BBC 5 Live.
It was my colleague, Sophie Donnelly, who approached our editor, Anna Stewart, with the idea for a podcast. They’d both recently read journalist and NSPCC ambassador, Terri White’s memoirs, Coming Undone, about dealing with her own childhood abuse. As a child, school had been Terri’s safe place. It was also her route to university and a successful magazine career.
With such an important issue, which was fairly under-reported, how did the production team set about telling this story?
We knew we wanted to get to the heart of the issues but we were also wary of making a podcast that people ‘should’ listen to, but didn’t. By weaving in Terri’s own story and by speaking to some inspiring and compelling individuals, we hoped to create something that people would be drawn to.
Terri reunited with her old primary school teacher, who told her she had just as much grit and determination then as she does now, and met an incredible head teacher in Barrow who has transformed a local primary school. Gradually we learned more about what was going wrong in education and children’s services, but also just how much of it was similar to Terri’s experiences in the 1980s. Despite repeated requests for a minister, one voice we didn't hear was the Government’s. We did eventually receive a statement and, more intriguingly, a quiet offer of a meeting from one individual at the heart of policy making so – watch this space.
Thankfully, the podcast has managed to shine a spotlight onto what’s become a deeply overlooked issue.
Terri’s personal story touched people too, from teachers to abuse survivors. We heard from social workers, educational psychologists, youth workers and many, many parents. They felt isolated, misunderstood, mistreated andultimately - often traumatised by the drive for 100% attendance.
When you have the Guardian calling your podcast, "required listening for our political leaders”, and the Telegraph agreeing that it, "should be at the heart of the news agenda”, you know you've done something right. But we were particularly pleased by how it was received by groups and charities in the sector. The Centre For Social Justice tweeted that it had brought the issues to life, which was exactly what we set out to do. Square Peg, which represents children who struggle to attend school, talked about the series' “incredible storytelling and nuance.” Nuance in particular is something that narrative podcasts can deliver so much better than typical news reporting.
