With help from a team of experts in creative media and communications, the charity helps the young person or ‘Fixer’ to transform a challenging situation or experience into a positive, by using their own voice as a promotional tool and their position as ‘expert by experience'.
Fixer projects address a wide range of themes including:
Safeguarding and Surviving Abuse;
Mental Health and Wellbeing;
Identity and Gender;
Surviving Teenage Cancer and other life-challenging medical conditions;
Eating Disorders and Body Image; along with many other themes.
Further information can be found on the website fixers.org.uk.
Fixers enables people who struggle to get their voices heard to come centre stage and gain the opportunity to understand where they fit, and the contribution they can make to society.
Fixer resources are viewed and used by millions, including at prestigious institutional conferences, in schools, at home and online. For example, Fixers' 'Feel Happy Eating Fix' engaged Fixers with world experts and their work on this is being used in 1/3 of GP's surgeries across the UK.
This ‘Fix’ lead to a grant from the Wellcome Trust to support a further 5 projects in the series.
As well as films, Fixers creative resources can include: animations; posters; booklets; board games; wristbands; and even baby bibs. In 2016 this resulted in almost 1,900 projects of 'Fabulous Stuff' from the 2,833 Fixers recruited that year.
We want to share some of that with you and this seems like a great platform to do so!
Because Fixer projects give young people access to a huge audience, they are able to challenge preconceptions about youth and to spread news of their contribution to society. They also have the benefit of enabling others to become better informed on sometimes challenging themes, which may directly or indirectly influence themselves.
85% of Fixers continue to use their resource to continue their campaign for their chosen issue, long after their project is formally closed (Leeds University Study 2016). The study also showed a sixth-fold increase on SROI (Social Return on Investment) modelled on the Big Lottery’s ‘A Guide to SROI’.
Two more facts about us of which we are very proud, are: On 10 May 2014, Stephen Sutton, who went on to become a national campaigner for Teenage Cancer Trust, launched a Fixers project to spread goodwill by creating the National Good Gestures Day. This work was continued by Stephen's friends and went on to result in a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most heart-shaped hand gestures recorded in one location. In June 2016 Fixers won the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service.