Creative and Campaigns Group: Member information

The Creative & Campaigns Group is for young people who’ve had cancer and been supported by Teenage Cancer Trust. It gives you the opportunity to share your story, create content with us, give feedback on our ideas and get involved with campaigning, media and policy work.

This enables you to have your voice heard, learn new skills and use your experiences to shape our work. You’ll also gain insights into the charity and marketing & communications sectors, and can put your participation on your CV or LinkedIn to boost your profile.

By joining the group, you’ll be helping the charity develop its marketing and communications to make sure they are as impactful and relevant as possible. This will help to increase our awareness and support, allowing us to reach more young people with cancer across the UK.

• You can get involved as a member of the Group in up to four ways: storyteller, creator, campaigner and consultant. You will have indicated which one(s) you’re interested in when you applied to join. Click here for more information on what’s involved in each. You can change your preferences at any time by letting us know.
• If you have a disability and would like us to make reasonable adjustments to enable you to take part, please let us know and we’ll meet your needs wherever possible.
• If you don’t have access to what you need, e.g. access to a smartphone or laptop to create content, we’ll try and support you with supplying equipment.
• The standard length of membership is up to two years. We ask for a minimum commitment of three months – after this, you can stop at any time. When you leave the Group, we’ll give you clear information about exiting.
• We’ll consider extensions to membership in some circumstances e.g. if your health has impacted on how much you can take part.

• Participation in the Group is on a voluntary basis and it is not a paid opportunity.
• Ideally you’ll do at least one task per month, depending on what you feel able to do and are interested in.
• Most tasks will be done virtually, in your own time, and won’t require face-to-face activities.
• Occasionally however, there may be a request for something that does require meeting face-to-face e.g. filming on location. Any request involving a physical meeting will make this clear upfront. You won’t be required to do any face-to-face work if you don’t want to.
• Tasks will be completed individually unless otherwise stated. There may be some requests, such as focus groups, where a meeting is required to discuss ideas. We’ll make this clear at the time of request. You won’t be required to take part in any group discussions if you don’t want to.
• Some tasks may have a limit on the number of people required to get involved. We’ll make this clear in the request.
• If you haven’t wanted to participate for a while, or if something changes and you no longer want to take part, you can email and let us know – we always welcome feedback.
• If we don’t hear from you for three months while you’re a Group member, we’ll get in touch with you and/or your clinical team to check in.
• The initial Group of members in summer 2022 will be a pilot of the programme. We’ll revisit how the pilot is going after three months to gather feedback from members and iron out any potential problems.
• We will give members the opportunity to come up with a new name for the Group if they would like to.
• The Creative & Campaigns Group will operate within the framework and policies of Teenage Cancer Trust, and all members are representatives of Teenage Cancer Trust.

• We’ll email you about opportunities to get involved approximately once every 1-3 weeks. The exact number will vary depending on the number of projects happening.
• We won’t ever send you more than two requests per week.
• Members will only receive requests for the type/s of role they have chosen to get involved with (storyteller, creator, consultant and/or campaigner).
• Every 3 months, we’ll send an email newsletter updating you on what the Group has been up to, the ways you’ve helped and how your input has made a difference.
• You can email [email protected] to contact the Teenage Cancer Trust team. This email address will only be monitored during working hours and should never be used in an emergency to contact the charity.
• We will sometimes email members asking for feedback about your involvement in order to improve your experience and ensure the Group is run effectively. You can also email us with feedback at any time.

Please follow these guidelines while you’re a member of the Group:

Reviewing work in progress

For some campaigns, we’ll be sharing creative concepts and ideas that are works in progress. So, please don’t expect perfection straight away – your input will be invaluable in helping us shape our ideas and reach a final version. If you think our draft work is poorly targeted or misjudged, we want you to tell us – we’re very open to your feedback.

Maintaining confidentiality

Any ideas, creative or other work we share with you must be kept confidential and not shared externally. Draft videos will be shared with members using unlisted YouTube links and labelled as confidential. Giving feedback For activities where commenting on creative work is required, members must give feedback appropriately and professionally. For example, not unkindly criticising a case study of a fellow young person that may feature in a campaign

Please also be aware that we’ll be receiving feedback from several people, so we’ll base our revisions on collective rather than individual feedback, and make an objective decision on the final version.

Creating content

If you’re creating content with us (e.g. blogs, videos), our team will give you advice and feedback as needed, both ahead of creation and after submission, to make sure the content is on a relevant topic and up to standard for publishing. We’ll also keep you informed on which channels the content will be used on and when in order to achieve the best results.

Campaigning

Please note that we can’t promise to campaign on everything. We recognise that some people are particularly passionate about certain topics. However, these may not always be part of our wider plan. We value all feedback and suggestions, but we have to choose what to focus on because we can’t cover all topics at once. There may be other charities that campaign on a topic that we don’t, which we can signpost you to if you feel strongly about a certain area.

Please be aware that some material that will be shared may be upsetting or trigger negative emotions, such as emotional case studies about other young people with cancer.

If something upsets you during your work with the Group, please let our team know. We’ll check in with you, encourage you to take a break if you need to, and to seek support from your clinical team, existing support networks or external agencies such as Childline.

Any concerns for the safety or wellbeing of a Group member will be addressed in line with Teenage Cancer Trust’s safeguarding policy. Read our safeguarding statement here.

The Creative & Campaigns Group will be supported by the Marketing and Communications department at Teenage Cancer Trust, with support from the Youth Engagement and Participation team.

We will make sure that membership is a positive, fulfilling and appropriate experience for all members. This includes appropriate safeguarding and stewardship of members when representing Teenage Cancer Trust.

Please note that the Creative & Campaigns Group is not a peer-to-peer support group. If you are looking to connect with others who’ve been through cancer, do have a look at our events for young people, or speak to your clinical team.

Have another look at the FAQ on our website, or email us at [email protected] if there’s anything you’re still unsure about.