Encouraging forces family members that HE is a viable option

University of Winchester - Forces Campaign

The University of Winchester is renowned for being an Armed Forces-friendly employer and winner of the MoD Defence Employer Recognition Scheme Silver Award for their support of the Forces community and families of military personnel. Keen to support the continuing learning of members of military families, who often face barriers to HE participation, Winchester instigated the “Positive Pathways to HE” programme, in partnership with the Forces Employment Charity. The objective: support the exploration of viable pathways into further and higher education and build the requisite skills and confidence in forces family members.

This project was film-led. On campus, we sat down and interviewed three current undergraduate students, speaking with them about their university experiences, their background and how they overcame any issues specific to being in a forces family, for example how moving home so often may have affected their education, whether their military background has helped during their studies, how they communicated their desires or inquiries in family, and what were the triggers that helped them – and how they were supported to – make the decision to apply to university. We produced a hero campaign film with all three interviewees, interspersed with environmental B-roll, within a campaign wrapper of “Go Higher and Further”.

We also produced ten shorter videos of varying lengths, focussing on specific comments or themes, some of which used footage not included in the main film. From this, we developed a supporting social media campaign for Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. To complement these, we created static informational posts with common Q&A’s distilled. Due to the quality and the stories of the film interviewees, the campaign outputs were extremely poignant, introspective and powerful, important to ensure their messages connect with young people in a similar situation considering whether to pursue higher or further education.