Cerebral Palsy Plus are a charity in Bristol ‘working with children and adults with Cerebral Palsy, their families and their carers. Our aim is to support our members so that no matter what their circumstances or needs, they can live as independently as they wish,  living life to the full!’ (I took this from their website : http://www.cerebralpalsyplus.org.uk/). I wanted to work with this charity in particular because it was close in location, so I was supporting a small local and independent charity and exposing the work that they are doing for people but also because it was a charity that hadn’t had as much coverage as many of the bigger charities. They were therefore a lot more willing to sit, discuss and share their ‘clients’ with me as well as allowing me to attend the events that they held for them. This added a new level to my project that I didn’t think I would manage to do.

In terms of getting in contact with the charity itself, I just sent them an email explaining who I was and what I wanted to do within my project as well as how I wanted to involved them within my project. Whenever I email potential clients, I always make sure that my tone of writing is as light and positive, but equally professional as possible as they are more than likely to contact me back with the same attitude. I have attached the email that I sent to Cerebral Palsy Plus below and their response:

I found that their response was really open and the fact that they invited me to meet them put me in a great position to follow through with contacting people. My next step, after talking with Cathy, was to arrange a time with her that would best suit both of us so that we could discuss my project further and she could tell me more about the charity and what they did to help people and families suffering with cerebral palsy.

Cathy brought along a lot of their past posters and leaflets from past months that they had released as a charity, including past events and case studies of people who have used the charity for support. She explained that they needed a photographer for the charity as she feels as though ‘photographic content’ is really important in building more of an audience for the charity. I showed her my photography Instagram to give her an idea of my shooting style and how I approach photography, particularly focusing on my project that I completed with the Street Pastors in Bath. We arranged another meeting for two weeks time so that she would be able to help me further and put me in contact with more people within the charity as well as their clients. She explained that it would probably be beneficial to me if I were to post something on their Facebook page describing what my project was about. This post appealed to people living with Cerebral Palsy as I wanted to photograph individuals and their families/carers and get more of an idea of what it was like for them living with the disability. I wanted to make the Facebook post as friendly as possible as I felt that this would make more people want to be involved within my project. I sent the post to Cathy and she posted it on the page for me:

From this one post alone, I had over 15 people, who were sufferers of cerebral palsy as well as some of their parents and other family members contacting me about my project and expressing their interest in being involved. This was so overwhelming as I hadn’t expected this response just from their own Facebook page. I had obviously used Facebook in the past to get people involved within my projects but because this was a charity I was initially unsure on the response that I would receive from people.

Cathy informed me that she was also contacting people after my meeting, people who they have worked with as well as some of her colleagues who suffer from Cerebral Palsy. This was such a positive response for me as I then had people emailing me, and contacting me first about wanting to be involved and wanting to know more about my project. Not only did I have people from the Bristol and Bath area contacting me but I also had people from the rest of the UK and even a mother who had heard from her son’s school in London about my project! This was so encouraging for me and made me a lot more confident in my ability to contact people and withhold a project like this.

The charity played a huge part in the finalisation of my project and I will be forever grateful to them for putting me in contact with the people that I photographed. I got two of my participants through the charity and had many more contacting me through the charity. Another of my participants came to me through the charity ‘Genesis Trust’ who I have been working with for two years.

The fact that I was able to get such a strong coverage from all over the UK, just by taking that first step and contacting a charity off my own back felt so good. I feel as though this is a skill that I will be able to carry forward with me throughout my career.