Our Brand In 2020/21, our communications and marketing team played a crucial role in engaging with, and keeping, all our key stakeholders informed about VSA’s pandemic response and associated emergency measures that we had implemented to keep the vulnerable people we support and our employees safe. During the year, we communicated with a wide range of stakeholders including; service users and their associated relatives/emergency next of kin, employees, volunteers, local and national government, public health and local and national media outlets. Our work involved keeping all stakeholders informed about changes to our service provision, lobbying the Scottish Government for better support for the sector in relation to Covid-19 funding, PPE supplies, vaccines and tests while advocating for the vulnerable children and adults we care for.
Key activities included: Organising and engaging with residents and their associated relatives/key contacts to take part in quarterly virtual feedback and consultation sessions. We performed these sessions throughout 2020/21 to share important information and updates from VSA, encourage peer support between other relatives, answer questions and listen to people’s experiences. We did this so we could shape better outcomes for the people we care for and enhance our visitor experiences while ensuring they were aligned with the Scottish Government’s tier restrictions.
Keeping our employees informed of our pandemic response and associated infection control advice through daily staff briefings
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Designed and delivered a range of digital toolkits aimed at helping to build people’s knowledge and personal resilience
Liaising with relatives of the people in our care, via telephone, email and letters to keep them informed and answer any questions they had
Designing and delivering (in collaboration with our VSA Carers Support Service) virtual carers week events for 2020
New marketing brochures designed for our services
Recruitment campaigns
Market and industry positioning of changes to our service provision
