More than a campaign; a movement for change

Reading time: 5 minute(s)

Date published: 18 May 2026

Staff from Passion4Social and Shared Lives Greater Manchester stand side by side, smiling widely. Text reads: ‘More than a campaign. A movement for change

Author: Jo Morfee, Passion4Social

On 16th April, the Passion4Social team attended a celebration event at Friends’ Meeting House in Manchester, following a year of partnership working with multiple social sector organisations and care providers across Greater Manchester, to raise awareness of Shared Lives.

Passion4Social won a competitive tender process in March 2025 to deliver a twelve-month strategic marketing campaign, funded by the national Accelerated Reform Fund. The fund is focused on innovation, which has enabled us to try out some new approaches.

Over the last twelve months, the campaign has focused on raising awareness of Shared Lives in the region, a national care model that provides support for adults, many of whom have learning disabilities.

Alongside the campaign, the fund also resourced a programme to improve hospital discharge transitions into Shared Lives care, and a ‘Live More’ dementia pilot to test out whether people with early-stage dementia could be matched with Shared Lives carers.

A large group of people gathered in a conference room, seated together around tables and standing chatting. A projector screen display at the front of the room reads: Welcome! Carers Celebration Event, 18/04/26.

Hearing from those at the heart of Shared Lives

The celebration event brought together everyone who has worked on these programmes, and centred carers and supported people’s voices.

It was an uplifting and honest event, with genuine reflections shared on what has worked well and what has been challenging.

On the day, we heard from several carers about their firsthand experiences of the system, with many emphasising the difference Shared Lives really makes to both carers’ and supported people’s lives.

Frustrations were shared about some parts of the system, which can be more difficult to navigate for carers, especially within hospital discharge scenarios.

This was counterbalanced by the showcasing of a brilliant pilot project focused on improving how carers are linked to hospital discharge processes in an intentional and considerate way.

Jo stands in front of a projector screen, speaking animatedly into a microphone as seated people watch on. The screen displays an image of two people chatting at an outdoor table, with text that reads: Insights from the past year.

A shared commitment to improving carer conditions

Throughout the day, what became very obvious to us was the passion in the room.

Whether it was a senior manager within the NHS, a local authority service manager, a carer or an administrator, people from all parts of the network really care about making Shared Lives a success and improving conditions for carers in Greater Manchester.

We shared a short fifteen-minute replay of the work we’ve been doing for the past year. Our work has also centred those with lived and learned experiences; 80% of our core team identifies as having a disability, so this is baked into the fabric of what we do.

Beyond our team, we approached this programme by using a co-production approach every step of the way. This meant that we had to make some compromises, including starting the digital campaign three months later than planned.

It was more important to us to make sure we had integrated the voices and requests of carers and supported people, knowing that this takes more time, but it is always worthwhile.

We started the programme with a storytelling workshop and co-designed the narrative for the campaign with around thirty people.

We ran focus groups for carers and supported people to tell us what they thought about the branding and messaging.

We held one-to-one meetings with all borough and service leads to capture their views on what success looks like.

Collaboration across the care ecosystem has been key to this programme; we’ve engaged with over 80 organisations across the year, which has been a significant investment of energy. It has resulted in raised awareness of Shared Lives within key referral organisations and built a solid foundation from which we can continue to build upon.

All of this has led us to deliver what we believe is a solid campaign, rooted in lived experience. We’ve made everything we’ve produced fully accessible, in line with our values and mission.

Passion4Social’s Managing Director, Thiago, speaking animatedly into a microphone with the bottom half of a projector screen in the background and a crowd of people in the audience.

Leaving a legacy

It has not been without its challenges, of course. We acknowledged some of these in our presentation.

For example, a marketing campaign alone cannot fix some of the systemic issues, such as differences in support levels and fees for carers within each borough, service leads being at capacity, or the challenge of engaging with some of the influential decision makers to help us move the campaign forward.

Yet we’re proud of what we’ve managed to achieve in a relatively short space of time, and we hope to leave a strong legacy for those in Greater Manchester to be able to continue to raise awareness of this brilliant offer that is Shared Lives, a ‘hidden gem’ as one carer put it.

Finally, we’d like to thank the team at Gaddum for putting together such a thoughtful, carefully curated and inspiring event.

We hope that the work will continue to raise awareness of Shared Lives beyond the campaign funding period, because the need for high-quality care has never been more acute.

If you’d like to see the fruits of the campaign, you can visit the Shared Lives Greater Manchester website, and we recommend that you view the campaign video for a quick overview of what Shared Lives is all about.