Harnessing stories to change perceptions of prison mental health

Client Overview

We worked with North London Mental Health Partnership (NLMHP) on a ground-breaking campaign to demystify working in prison mental health.

Challenge

NLMHP finds it hard to recruit prison staff and the vacancy rate was high.

The challenge was acute for speech and language therapists (SALT), nurses and psychologists. In October 2023, the vacancy rate was more than 50% in HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Pentonville and Brixton.

NLMHP asked us to raise awareness of the three priority professions in the prison service, to encourage more people to apply and to celebrate and retain staff.

Solution

‘Someone Like Me’ is the recruitment and retention campaign we developed in partnership with NLMHP. We pivoted ‘Someone like me’ to address perceptions of working in prison mental health.

Developed new partnerships with Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) and Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to directly reach professional audiences.
Worked with staff to develop the campaign and share their stories across a 9-week social media campaign.

Impact

Shared 40 posts across LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Instagram, with an average engagement of 5% on LinkedIn, more than double the 2% industry average.

Inspired more than 500 professionals to sign up to ‘Behind the prison walls’
webinars about nursing, psychology and speech and language therapy.

Campaign has achieved an unprecedented increase in applicant volume and quality.

In May 2024:

• targeted vacancies are on track to reduce from 56% to 7%
• on course to fill 93% of vacancies over the next three to four months
• predicting a reduction in agency spending of 40-50%.