FOCUS: Recovery and Wellness Community

‍About the client:

FOCUS is a recovery community organization offering free support and resources to anyone impacted by mental health, addiction, or trauma issues in Findlay, Ohio and surrounding communities. 

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Challenge:

Members of the staff at FOCUS reached out to Homeplace Creative to create a video that would showcase the impact on their programming to potential donors at their annual fundraising event. After speaking with the director and staff about potential ideas, we decided to use the journalistic technique of “putting a face” on the story, that is highlighting the story of one client to communicate how FOCUS is saving the lives of those in the community.

A challenge the team directly discussed was avoiding stigma. Many clients at FOCUS were overcoming opioid addiction.According to Ohio State University, Ohio is considered “ground zero” for the opioid epidemic. In 2015, there were 3,050 deaths in Ohio due to opioids, ranking Ohio number one in the nation. At the time of filming, there were wide debates among officials across Ohio about the use of naloxone and other preventative measures. Funding for programs like the ones FOCUS provided was being impacted negatively by politics and stereotypes of individuals addicted to opioids.

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Our work:

After deciding with the FOCUS team that we our story would revolve on one former client and current staff member, Brae, we set out to create a video that would humanize the opioid epidemic, so that members of theFindlay community could develop empathy for those dealing with opioid addiction and other related trauma. To create the video story, we employed the following tactics:

• Took time to personally meet with Brae beforehand, sat in on his art class and made sure he was genuinely comfortable with us before gathering the interview and footage for his narrative.
• Made sure Brae felt a sense of agency in the video production process by asking for his insight about the stories we could tell and his ideas of where to film. Through these discussions, we came up with the train analogy described in the video.
• Practiced patience and kindness when working with Brae to make sure he felt good about sharing his story.
• Used minimal camera equipment when filming the art classBrae teaches to intrude as little as possible while gathering footage from the course.
• Made sure to film non-identifying features of art class participants who expressed the wish not be filmed.
• Worked closely with FOCUS staff and team to ensure the final deliverables met their communication needs through a detailed planning and pre-production process.
• Provided Brae an opportunity (along with the FOCUS team) to suggest edits in the production and post-production process and completed suggested edits in a timely manner.

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Result:

Brae and the FOCUS team were happy with the deliverable provided and excited to use their story to solicit funding for programming while educating the community on the impact they have on vulnerable populations.