6. Street work and communication :
methodology and communication plan

If you have decided to embark on communication, it will be necessary to conceive a communication plan. This is the battle plan, the dashboard that will enable you to know permanently where you stand and where you are going.

It consists of several points to be studied :

- the field inventory which purpose it is to look into the evaluation at starting point and into the situation of the moment

- the general strategy which will identify your objective, your targets, your messages

- the analysis and choice of tools which will lead you to select the best channels of communication to reach your target

- the operational plan which will allow you to put your strategy into practice.

6.1 Draw up the field inventory

It is good during a lifetime to look back from time to time and examine the way already covered, the successes and failures met, before looking towards the future and embark on new actions.

Where communication is concerned, the same approach is essential. It is an exercise one has to carry out oneself internally, but which it is also useful to complete by a small exterior task by questioning your communication targets.

Seen from inside

It is the time one will question oneself about

- the past communication actions : what kind of actions, with what result ?

- the present and future needs in communication : in function of your objectives as association ?

- who was in charge of same: will be in charge inside your organisation ?

- who were and will be your possible partners and sponsors ?

- what means were implemented, what means are available for the future ?

You can also find out (and why not get your inspiration from it) how similar associations go about it, how it is done in other countries.

Seen from outside

In order to get a more objective view of the situation, it is in your interest also to contact your targets (the journalists) and public opinion, asking them what they think about your communication actions.

In fact, discrepancies are liable to emerge between what you have perceived as result and the perception your targets will have gained from it.

In order to take a better measure of the impact from your communication actions, you could suggest to certain of your targets to grant you a little time, submit to them a succinct question list which you would let them have a few days in advance.

This is how we have processed to prepare this guidebook. We have interviewed about sixty journalists, youngsters, political authorities and other actors concerned in different countries and they have opened their doors wide for us. Their remarks and advices have helped us to better understand their way of thinking, of making enquiries, of exercising their profession. It also gave us the opportunity to get to know them personally. You will moreover find their testimonies as you go through the pages of this guide…

From these interviews one main conclusion becomes apparent : many journalists prefer direct and personal contact as a means of obtaining information, especially where social topics are concerned. This pro-active approach of the journalists can therefore turn out to be productive. For them same as for us.

Thanks to these personal contacts, you can enlarge (or initiate) your network of press contacts. It is indeed useful to constitute beforehand, and apart from urgent media coverage, an address book of journalists with whom it is possible to remain on good and regular terms.

6.2. To define a communication strategy

6.2.1 Communication isn’t something you can do just like that

Because "He who does not know which course to take will always have the winds blowing from the wrong quarters", you should not set about it blindfold. To communicate takes time and energy, demands a lucid strategy and the results will not be there if you are not well prepared. Your communication efforts could come out as a failure — the journalists will have misunderstood you, did not turn up, wrote nothing — or even produce undesirable effects — the paper will not be favourable, the youngsters will feel betrayed, etc.

To communicate is therefore not without risk.

But first of all you have to clearly identify your objectives. It is all right to communicate, but to what purpose, to say what, to whom ?

This chapter goes through a few key points you will have to keep in mind before embarking on a communication action. More often, these questions belong to common sense. But too often, one prefers to throw oneself immediately in the action, without having previously asked the fundamental questions.

Besides, one must always be "more or less" ready to reply to the questions of a journalist, since the chosen moment is not always your responsibility. So is it that a journalist has the possibility to call you without warning and to ask you to react on the spur of the moment about a topical question in the news.

6.2.2 Define the aims of communication

If you are convinced of the usefulness of communication towards the media, it remains to define which are the precise objectives.

Each one will have to put the question and find the appropriate answers. These answers will sometimes be either very general or more specific. They may possibly answer to a precise need of the moment. They will develop as time goes by. They combine between each other.

At this stage one should ask oneself the following questions :

- What are our problems which could find a solution (at least partly) if the information was covered in the media ?

- Do you have projects that cannot be realised unless you obtain outside private support, from the city, the commune, the inhabitants, the schools ? The press could present your project and in this way help you to find some sponsors.

- In another trend of thought, which are the projects you are about to launch with your target public and which could offer a "communication towards the media" aspect, the latter being therefore integral part of the project right at the start.

6.2.3 Communicate towards whom ?

Your final target is public opinion, be it local, national or international. And the privileged means to reach it, are the media. Direct contact is also possible but this is more often only possible at local level.

This is why the media constitutes your operational target.

But which media ? The daily papers, the weekly papers, television, radio, Internet ? Inside these different media, who are the journalists who cover your social sector ?

A choice will have to be made.

And to choose, it is necessary to be a minimum aware of your media environment. Certain papers, magazines, web sites, certain radio or television programs will after inquest turn out to be possible partners : either because they have already treated themes directly linked to your activity in the past, or because the social profile of the media appears to correspond to what you seek.

You can also start by contacting the journalist. Spot in your familiar media the journalists who have covered social subjects close to your own or who seem to you open to a social approach. One is sometimes surprised : a journalist of a sports magazine could turn out to be your best ally for your project to create a football team in your district

You can after that draw up a list of media and journalists constituting a working basis. According to a precise question justifying recourse to the media, you will go through your list and will decide on the priority targets.

At first, it will probably be difficult because you know nobody. But very quickly, the journalists will have identified you. And, on condition your not toot much of "a bore", you will find it easier to convince them to co-operate with your association. It will be up to you to suggest interesting projects.

Among the potential targets you have identified, some will appear more adequate to the action you wish to highlight.

For instance:

- the journalists of the main dailies treating social themes will be a good target to cover a conference attended by numerous political and social personalities;

- on the contrary, the main television channels are not very keen to cover conferences that are not very visual. And the minutes are scarce. They will certainly do it for the big meetings of political parties, but very seldom for a conference of an association;

- the local television will probably be more interested;

- the national and local radios if you know a programme which covers this type of theme;

- Internet : place on other sites a link referring to your event.

With experience, you will acquire certain reflexes and ask yourself right away, for instance : "who, among the journalists I know, would accept to cover our event ? So and sot will find the subject super, another one will not find it sufficiently visual, a third one has already treated a subject for us last week, a further one had expressed definite interest for a next occasion." You start with a kind of checklist of the existing contacts. After that you update with new contacts.

It goes without saying that every medium has a different approach according to its power and its geographic coverage.

International news agencies such as Reuter, Agence France Presse or Associated Press are interested in an issue only insofar as it can also be interesting for their subscribers (who are media themselves). Except for significant events (preferably international ones), you can forget about them.

National media are more open to issues relating to social work. However, don’t get it wrong and miss your target. Top newsreaders appearing in the evening news will probably not easily interview you about the quintessence of social street work. On the other hand, a journalist in charge of the "society" section of a daily newspaper might well carefully listen to you if you have something important to communicate about.

At local level, it is even easier. By definition, those media are interested in what happens in their neighbourhood. Why not begin there ?

6.2.4 With what message?

Now that you have chosen your targets, it remains to know what you are going to tell them. Which information is it you wish to transmit? What is the news? Is it liable to be taken up in a media?

For each one of your media actions, you must clearly identify the message that is meant to reach the final reader/audience. The message should consist in only a few words.

Example of message:

- "The homeless are not asking for pity but for respect";

- "It is not because the youngsters are in the street that they are "scoundrels"";

- "The street worker is the last resort when everything else has failed";

- "You don’t always have to take youngsters at their word, but you should take them seriously"

The object of your media action will then be to get your message through.

How do you get your message through?

To achieve this, it is not necessary either for the journalist or you to deliver the message flat out. It would not be very convincing. It is the report as a whole that has to demonstrate your message. It is the conclusion that the reader/audience has to draw by himself after having read the article or seen the programme on television that is important.

And to be convincing, it will be necessary to prepare the field for the journalist. Make him meet the youngsters, the witnesses (street workers, youth services, eventually neighbours) who will bring public opinion to reconsider their prejudices: "No, indeed, they are not all of them scoundrels. They are even rather nice. It is true they have no other place to meet apart from the street."

On the other hand, certain tools can be very useful in your work, notably the one concerning the process and neurological connections stating that every person gives privilege to one or the other connection to understand and to communicate. This is how certain persons are more Visual, others more Auditory or Physical (the senses and the body). One speaks generally of the Olfactory connection for anything related to taste or smell. A visual person will mainly use expressions such as "I see", "it is clear", in his vocabulary; an auditory, expressions such as "I say to myself", "I hear that", "this talk makes sense to me"; the physical will rather say, "I feel that", "I am in contact with".

Other elements should be borne in mind to improve communication.

- Although the world is real, we do not act directly on this reality. Each one of us builds his own vision of the world, and this image varies from one individual to another.

- One cannot not communicate, according to Paul Watzlawick. One can talk or say nothing, whether one wants it or not, any behaviour is communication.

- Meet the other person in his vision of the world.

To establish and maintain the relation with the person one is speaking to, begin by meeting him on his own field.

- Where efficient communication is concerned, the result is more important than the intention. It is the reaction of the person you are talking to which will tell you what real impact you have on him.

6.2.5 Who is going to communicate?

Is every one inside your association capable to communicate towards the media? Should it be the task of a small team? A single spokesperson such as a press attaché? Entrust communication to an association specialised in communication?

So many questions to answer.

It is important to find out who in your association would be capable and interested to carry out this mission. Certain persons have ideas, others are smooth talkers, others yet are very good writers. Why not form a small communication cell for your association or your collective of associations with a co-ordinator appointed by the team?

6.2.6 When should one communicate?

The advice is to communicate regularly.

If you wait until a crisis occurs, you will have to improvise, face persons you never met before. It is a bad way of starting.

Example: all of a sudden there is a riot in your district, the press hastens on the spot, you have to answer questions put by journalists absolutely unknown to you and who know nothing about either the district, or the youngsters or your work. They give you generously three minutes to explain what you think of the situation, between the police and the lord mayor. Be not surprised if you cannot find any of your views in the report covering the event.

But if you had met the journalist previously, at the time of an action led by your association for instance, if he had from time to time received your news bulletin, the situation would be quite different:

- The problem would already be familiar to the journalist, thanks to your communication actions;

- He would already have got in touch with you by phone as soon as he heard about the riot to ask you what was going on;

- He would have retrieved from his archives the documentation you would have forwarded to him previously on the subject.

In so doing, you would have more chance to see your point of view presented more objectively, better supported than if you had not taken the initiative to communicate.

Avoid the overdose

The opposite excess is also counter productive. To communicate too often tires the target. One ends by throwing everything directly in the wastebasket without even looking at it.

When should one refrain from communicating ?

If you are not yet ready, if you have nothing special to announce, if your ideas are not sufficiently clear, if you wish above all not to have the press meddle, it is of course essential not to communicate.

6.2.7 Communicate at local, national, European, international level?

Each media has a rather definite geographical coverage. One should therefore not mistake the target:

- An action towards the shop keepers of your district will obviously be suitable for a local media;

- But if you come out with a completely new idea in your district, something never heard of in your country (the super market puts free of charge at your disposal a warehouse to serve as rehearsal space for the rap groups of your district), then you will also interest the national press;

- If your warehouse gives shelter every month to the hottest foreign rap groups of the moment, you will interest the international media.

It is a question of adapting one’s target to the contents of your communication.

The impact also depends on your position or on what you represent. An international collective of street workers has more weight than a local association, and this gives even greater credibility to the contents of your communication. What is important is that these contents have a wider dimension than a mere district incident.

6.2.8 Integrate communication into the action

A communication action, be it meant for the press, the public authorities or the inhabitants of the district, will often be about an action, a problem or an event to be created.

Consequently, why not think also in terms of communication at the moment one conceives a project:

- Is it adaptable for communication, a minimum visual?

- Is the time well chosen to communicate?

- To what extent will this communication initiative be useful for the association, the public reached?

- Towards whom does one wish to communicate?

- Chose the right tool: Press release? Visit on the field and invite a journalist? Press file? Direct contacts?

- What will be the budget?

- Who will be in charge?

- In other words, all the above strategic questions already mentioned in the present chapter.

In itself, this communication stage could also serve as an object of activity by your usual public. In that case you kill two birds with one stone.

Once again, what is required is that the event which will attract the journalist (and the reader) be an excuse to speak more at large, with deeper and "long term" views.

6.2.9 Communicate on what is immediate and/or on the fundamental work: two different approaches?

The street worker tends to think that his action is slow, aims the long term and therefore does not interest the press on the look out for immediate viewpoints.

This is true and at the same time not.

What is true is that the journalist needs a hook, a fact, and a story that will entice him to write a paper or produce a programme. He will look for something to report on.

What is false is that he is only looking for that. A good journalist will base his work on a fact or on a specific personality, but he will enlarge the framework to take into account the theme and this is where your speech on the long term will find a space.

It is up to you not to limit yourself to what is sensational or to slogans. Push on doors already open, declare what is obvious or howl with the wolves never has made things progress. The street worker must be conscious of his position that has to do both with solidarity and his difference with regard to his public. Indeed, if it is only to say what so many others repeat so often plaintively, one wonders what your contribution could be. It is by using this little distance, this wise and different speech that you will be pertinent and useful for the situation.

6.2.10. Involve your target public? How? Up to what point?

The users concerned constitute of course the reason street worker exist. And the journalists are more than often the ones who seek to meet them directly.

But be careful not to use them as instrument, make use of them without their knowledge.

A preparation must be planned before meeting a journalist. Generally it is always more interesting and efficient to let one’s public speak.

Help users to communicate on their own? Train them?

This guidebook is first of all meant for the street workers, but its contents could also be transmitted to their public, no matter if it consists of young people or less young people. Besides, every citizen should master a minimum of basic concepts regarding communication. In order to understand the rules of the game and escape from being a passive communication target but also, for the more active ones, in order to be able to communicate.

For a street worker, it is also probably the opportunity to create activities relating to communication. Not necessarily towards the press, but towards the inhabitants of the district, the police, the commune, the schools...

The few advices given in this guide can easily be extrapolated for other persons close to the target publics and the street workers.

Moreover, to set up communication actions is rather interesting and amusing.

6.2.11 Get the journalist interested

One should also consider the media value of the information. Can this interest the public? One has to make the effort of taking a step backwards and put oneself in the place of the journalist or the man in the street. Your action must be attractive, out of the ordinary, astonish, shake, and marvel...

Example 1: the announcement of the opening of a new youth house is perhaps important for the youngsters concerned, but as mere information, it is a bit meagre. If on the other hand one hears this youth house has been created in a former police station, one begins to arouse the journalist’s interest. If one says, moreover, that the educator of this youth house is a former police officer and amateur boxer, that he has put in a boxing ring and that a boxer school has been created on the premises, the journalist will be all ears.

Example 2: an association campaigning against racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia had invited a television journalist to come along to a dancing where a youth of foreign origin was forbidden to enter. Altercation, usher intervention, etc. all was filmed.

You will of course have to be careful (but this will depend on the journalist — one cannot control everything) that the message you are keen on and which is the reason of your communication action, is duly conveyed: "the youngsters need a meeting space ad a place where they can have interesting activities: sport for instance. Let’s therefore multiply this experience", "Racism is present in every day life, what is one waiting for to respect the law".

There is nothing to prevent you from warning the journalist about your objectives, from briefing him on the fundamentals of your action in order to give a maximum of chances to get your message over. But be aware that it is never a 100% guarantee. The journalist remains master of his work. Hence the interest to know the journalists sufficiently well: you will then be able to establish a relationship based on mutual confidence and co-operate with them on the long term.