Homer Creative worked on a strategy with SIPTU the Irish trade union, to raise the profile of the SKILL Programme in Ireland and to celebrate its success.

This initiative, in 2009, gave support workers in health and social care unprecedented opportunities to learn and develop their careers. SKILL was delivered by an imaginative partnership between employers, colleges and SIPTU, the union representing support workers in health and care. It delivered better patient care through teamwork between clinicians and support staff, by meeting pressing skills needs in health care and by raising self-confidence and well being among the participants.

Their need was to broadcast the successes of SKILL more effectively, so we worked with them on a strategy. Our aim was to celebrate their success and to win over more hearts and minds to the value of the work done by SIPTU and the SKILL Programme; to augment the business case being made by the union; and to promote the idea of more effective teamwork between health care assistants, nurses and doctors.

To do this we interviewed participants together with doctors, nurses and managers, who support the agenda, in order to create 'stories of success' that put over key messages. We planned the range of interviews, briefed photographers and undertook the research in Ireland in collaboration with our associate Jan Walmsley, Visiting Chair in Leadership and Workforce Development at London South Bank University.

We presented them in an attractive and persuasive style creating a celebration booklet that profiled the people involved with key messages about their success. This could then be distributed within the union, in work places and to stakeholders and policy makers with great success.

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