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I am submitting on behalf of The Yorkshire Post’s Loneliness: The Hidden Epidemic campaign, which launched in February 2014. The majority of work has been done by myself, with initial reporting by Ben Barnett, video journalism by Peter McNerney and photography by Bruce Rollinson.

Additional reporting and video can be found at www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/loneliness We launched the Loneliness: The Hidden Epidemic campaign with two main aims, for loneliness to be universally recognised as a health priority in our communities and to encourage our readers to volunteer for support services. Back then, nine of the region’s health and wellbeing boards failed to give significant mention of loneliness and social isolation in their overarching strategies, a crucial document that sets out priorities for health and social care for the coming years. Four of these have now pledged action, but we want a firm commitment from all local authorities to tackle loneliness, which takes it toll on 91,300 older people in our region. The campaign has received high-profile support from leading politicians, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, charities like Contact the Elderly, Independent Age and Friends of the Elderly, and Silver Line founder Esther Rantzen. On April 8, the campaign took a huge step forward when it was asked by the national charity, the Campaign to End Loneliness to chair amd host a summit on loneliness. Almost 100 people attended and it brought together experts working on the ground to share best practice. During the last year we’ve seen investment in tackling loneliness in Calderdale, where £1m was set aside for voluntary and community groups working on loneliness, and in North Yorkshire where a similar amount was also set aside. There too, separate funding was given to a community connect service working in the most remote areas of the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors. Leeds Council credited The Yorkshire Post’s campaign for their part in highlighting the issue in its winning bid for £6m of lottery funding in September. A project in Sheffield also won £6m. In May our campaign beat competition from 29 newspapers to win the Newspaper Society’s Making a Difference award, which highlighted the difference local newspapers can make in their communities, and was voted for by the public. In November, we were shortlisted alongside The Sunday Times, The Guardian and other national titles at the Older People In The Media Awards in the Best Factual Newspaper or Magazine Article About Older People’s Issues category. But perhaps most importantly, over the last 12 months The Yorkshire Post has also told the stories of real people suffering from loneliness, from the disabled pensioner stuck in her own home with only the TV for company, to the elderly man whose life has been transformed by weekly visits from a befriending service. As the anniversary of the first year of campaigning approaches, we are continuing to put pressure both locally and nationally on the authorities to take the issue seriously and are also preparing to launch two important initiatives which take the campaign back to the people who matter – those suffering from loneliness. In February we will host the first Friendship Lunch in a North Yorkshire pub, aimed at people who may not get out of the house much, and we will also launch an audio archive of real people telling their stories of loneliness on our website. This hard-hitting multi-media campaign will strike in a way that statistics sometimes do not.  

Journalistic Writing

Thousands in region suffering misery of loneliness – 2/8/2014, The Yorkshire Post No excuse to keep loneliness in the shadows – 4/9/2014, The Yorkshire Post Number of elderly people living alone and vulnerable set to rise – 6/23/2014, The Yorkshire Post Fears for lonely as councils fail to take action over epidemic – 2/08/2014, The Yorkshire Post Yorkshire’s shame as region branded worst for loneliness – 9/7/2014, The Yorkshire Post  

Video

Video: regional loneliness summit hears calls for urgent action – 4/9/2014, www.yorkshirepost.co.uk  

Photojournalism

‘Sundays are the worst… I just feel so alone’ – 8/2/2014, The Yorkshire Post

Credits: Jason Burke (writer), Lindsay Poulton (producer director), Francesca Panetta (executive producer and commissioning editor), David Levene (photographer)

THE SHIRT ON YOUR BACK is an interactive documentary about the Rana Plaza disaster in the context of the global fashion industry that knits us all together – it reminds the viewer that we are indeed part of the story. It was the worst industrial accident anywhere in the world for a generation – on 24 April 2013 a nine-story factory building on the outer edges of Dhaka collapsed. More than 1,130 people were killed and twice as many again were injured. They were making clothes sold in our high street stores. Right now, you could be wearing something made by one of them. Guardian journalists investigate the human cost of the global garment industry. This interactive documentary is a thought-provoking look at both the impact of the fast fashion industry, and the tragic events that took place on 24 April 2013. Combining compelling video footage with photography, infographics and written editorial we will take you to where millions make our clothes. While you’re with us, and them, we’ll keep track of how much they earn making our clothes and how much we spend buying them.  

Journalistic Writing

The Shirt on Your Back – 4/16/2014, The Guardian  

Video

The Shirt On Your Back – 4/16/2014, The Guardian

I have been writing about domestic abuse for over a year now, and have come to realise that the tragic murders which hit the headlines are far from the only aspect of this horrendous, yet everyday, social evil that demands our urgent concern. Hundreds of thousands of victims and their children live with violence, threat, coercion and control every day of their lives. Some of those lives are blighted for decades. The dynamics of abuse within a family home are typically complex, and the effects can be devastating.

I spent four months researching the Guardian Weekend feature which explores how well – or not – victims’ risk levels are identified and addressed by police – and what happens when they get it wrong. Access was difficult: I contacted several police forces and only one agreed to have me in to see their domestic abuse response operation. The piece was planned to run immediately after publication of what turned out to be a scathing HMIC inspection report into the DV performance of all 43 police forces in England and Wales, and in the week following I received a number of emails in response from victims and relatives. Some of the research I wasn’t able to use for the Weekend feature led to other articles. In the case-study element of a two-parter for the Guardian’s Social Care Network, I featured “Gillian”, whose violent husband had just been jailed. She was at risk of her life on the day of the verdict – in case he got off – and again on the day of sentencing – in case he walked with time served.  After her perpetrator was jailed, the Legal Aid Agency refused to meet Gillian’s legal costs as she tried to change her children’s names and flee the area. She was terrified, desperate to move on, but unable to: she was sure she’d be hunted down and killed. It wasn’t an exaggerated fear: women are murdered by a partner or ex on on a regular basis. Sometimes their children are killed too. This was a short piece, but it was the most read on the Guardian’s Social Care Network on the day it was published. By this point, I was aghast and furious at the various failures in the system that were compounding the risks faced by vulnerable and traumatised people. The damage caused to children also makes me incredibly sad. I wanted a more structured way of exploring the pressures and dilemmas in victims’ lives, rather than the adhoc approach of trying to get one commission here and another there. Over a couple of days, I wrote a detailed proposal for a campaign, and approached Wendy Berliner who heads up editorial for the Guardian’s online Professional Networks. As domestic abuse is so central to the work of many public sector professionals, I hoped a series of linked articles would reach a good number of relevant and hopefully interested people. Wendy, together with the Guardian’s social policy editor David Brindle, were instantly keen, and invited me to a meeting at which we convinced the Network editors – Social Care, Health, Public Leaders, Housing, Student, Higher Education, Teacher and Voluntary Sector – to take it on. They would commission a range of content over a period of a few months (this is ongoing), some written by me, some by other journalists. The campaign launched on the UN’s Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls, 25 November 2014, with my feature about a multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC), which seeks to bring all agencies together to discuss an area’s highest risk victims. Gillian’s plight had continued to worry me. I thought about her a lot. By October 2014, almost a year after I’d first met her, I discovered she’d been turned down once again for legal aid. Children’s services were by now concerned for the family’s safety. And women’s organisations were also now telling me that restrictions to legal aid for domestic abuse victims introduced in the recently passed Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act were putting people in more danger. It seemed that every state system meant to protect a vulnerable person who was being attacked – and their children – was letting them down. Legal aid cuts are a complex topic, however, and I knew it would need a long-form approach to explore the ramifications fully.  I approached an editor new to me at the Guardian’s Saturday pages, Susanna Rustin. This section commissions up to 2,500 words. Wonderfully, given she didn’t know me at all, she commissioned a piece. I went back to Gillian (in this piece known as Alice) and asked her to talk to me again. This time, we met at her home, and sat on the sofa where she had been repeatedly raped by her husband, to do the interview. It was an easy interview – she is a remarkable and resilient person – but a difficult couple of hours: I wondered if I was sitting in front of someone I would write about 18 months hence when her ex-husband had come out of prison and killed her. Her local police force were deadly serious about the danger she was in. Social services were so concerned for the children’s welfare at this point that they were prepared to pay her legal costs. The legal aid agency was still saying she earned £27 too much to qualify for state support to access the protection of the court. This piece got a huge response: 3,145 social media shares and 91 comments, plus a slew of emails offering financial support for Alice, one from a man who had watched his mother being abused throughout his childhood, and who himself was still suffering the effects. Just before the piece ran, I decided to make a little film for the Guardian’s Professional Networks to try to get across what it’s like as a domestic abuse victim to end up in court all by yourself, possibly to be cross examined by your abuser. Making the film was only possible thanks to a week of pro-bono filming and technical expertise generously given by documentary company True Vision, and it went live on the Guardian’s online “front” page on 11 December, the day before the charity Rights of Women’s judicial review into the lawfulness of restricting legal aid for DV victims was heard at the High Court. The Storify I am submitting relates to a recent session at the Public Accounts Committee, in which evidence was given by Ministry of Justice civil servants as to the effects of legal aid cuts. Margaret Hodge was clearly angry. I watched the session live online, tweeted and retweeted others’ tweets as it happened, and then curated and published this Storify of my tweets and relevant others immediately afterwards.   Journalistic Writing Domestic abuse survivor: ‘Injunctions won’t stop my ex’ – 21/04/2014, The Guardian Domestic abuse: why did my sister have to die? – 4/5/2014, The Guardian, Weekend magazine Abused and afraid – and denied legal aid – 29/11/2014, The Guardian Domestic abuse: how professionals come together to support high risk victims – The Guardian, 25/11/2014  

Video

Domestic abuse: “legal aid cuts leave women and children at risk” – 12/11/2014, The Guardian  

Social Media

@louisetickle DV victims: are legal aid cuts putting women in danger?

Extremists in Britain with links to Islamic State jihadists are offering cash payments to teenagers so they can travel to join terrorists in Syria, an investigation by The Times has found. A three-month undercover operation, in which reporters posed as two schoolgirls, has exposed the ease with which young British Muslims are being groomed, radicalised and facilitated in making the journey to join the foreign conflict. Take from the Times     Journalistic Writing Secrets of Britain’s teen terror trade uncovered – 12/19/2014, The Times  

Video

Secrets of Britain’s teen terror trade uncovered (see video tab) – 12/19/2014, The Times  

Social Media

(See “read the messages” tab – our own digital presentation of some of the content from an investigation carried out almost entirely via social media.) http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4301791.ece (see “Read the messages” tab)