Below are some examples of the projects mentioned in our proposal. They include: individual case study videos; a key-insights summary video; video diaries; and some more work with young people, including an anonymity-protected video. You can find more projects on the Case Studies and Blog pages of our site.
Essex County Council launched a ‘Family Innovation Fund’ Early Help programme to help families in volatile situations build resilience, and reduce their reliance on statutory support in the future. The programme was implemented by six different partners across the region, each offering their own intervention service.
As such, Traverse were commissioned to write an evaluation report, with Close-Up producing two ethnographic video case studies, exploring: what impact, if any, have these interventions had? And where could they be improved?
Above is one of the case studies, following 12-year-old Lewis, who had been experiencing extreme behaviour at home. Traverse’s final interactive report was also designed by Close-Up.
This example is one of four ethnographic case studies we produced, looking at the experiences, motivations and challenges, of four ‘community contributors’, in Leeds, Settle, Scarborough, and Bristol.
The overall aim of the research, which also included full written reports by Traverse, was to help national/local government, the voluntary sector, and business, better support people in later life to find meaningful ways to contribute to their communities through ‘informal volunteering’.
This is one of much our older, but still very pertinent, projects. Through a written report with Traverse, and ethnographic video studies with Close-Up, our client wanted to find out: what socio-economic barriers are faced by full-time, low-income workers? And what policy measures would reduce those barriers?
As such, we carried out three ethnographic case studies, with participants from different representative demographics, which were edited together into this single key-insights summary video.
We focussed on people’s experiences of: jobs and money, housing and transport, time and relationships, and consumer services. The resulting video was then twice shown at the House of Commons.
Flourish is a multi-sector collaboration to advance the successful implementation of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) in the UK.
As part of Traverse’s public engagement and research project for Flourish, we were commissioned to produce an insight film based on video diaries. We asked six young people from across England, to record diaries that documented their different transport experiences over a month, and reflect on how their experiences might differ if travelling by driverless car.
(Due to the impracticality of self-filming whilst travelling for this project, the diaries are based around the before and after of each journey.)
Arts Council England funded a ‘Cultural Citizens Programme’ to promote arts and culture to young people who would not normally have access or an interest.
For this ethnographic study, we followed a group of students in Liverpool, to find out: what was it like being on the programme, what were its impacts, and how could it be improved?
Our findings complimented a written report, which was published by the Arts Council.
IntoUniversity runs after-school centres that provide academic support, mentoring and other constructive activities, for young people from less privileged backgrounds, to help them either attain a university place or purse another chosen aspiration.
As part of the charity’s 2019 evaluation report, we were commissioned to spend a month visiting one centre, in Brent, to create an in-depth ethnographic video case study about the place and its impact.
We then spent a few months taking photo portraits, with interviews, of 24 IntoUniversity students in their homes across the UK. For the portraits, we decided to take the theme of ‘what brings you most joy’.
The results were incorporated into an Impact Report, assured by PwC, and a full qualitative Impact on Attainment report.
Thousands of children without permanent homes are growing up in B&Bs, spending months and sometimes years there. As such, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (CRAE), wanted to us to find out and communicate: what’s life like for young people experiencing this kind of temporary housing?
We worked with several young people who had lived in temporary housing, to understand what life had been like for them, and come up with a respectful and effective way to communicate their experiences.
To protect the young people’s privacy, no faces are shown. But the voices you hear are not performed, they’re from authentic interviews with the participants, who also helped out on set for the filming as part of a ‘co-production’ process.
For maximum traction, we titled the video ‘Thousand of British Children Live Like This’, and the film was shown to MPs at the House of Commons.