Family Activity Breaks (FAB) provide bereavement support, adventure activities and peer support in the aftermath of a family’s loss. The aim is to provide a safe and nurturing atmosphere for families to deal with their grief and meet other people who have been through a similar experience. FAB is a partnership between the Armed Forces, YHA (Youth Hostels Association) and the Ministry of Defence. sounddelivery has worked to support this project since pilot camps were run last summer. We were recently asked to provide support for the project by getting regional coverage for a 6 day charity bike ride from YHA Coverack in Cornwall to YHA Whitby in Yorkshire – a journey of almost 600 miles. The cyclists included YHA staff and military personnel.

We managed to secure coverage on many regional BBC and Commercial radio stations including BBC Radio Cornwall, BBC Radio Derby, regional Heart stations, BBC Radio Gloucestershire and BFBS: the station broadcasting to British military personnel. Many of these stations also broadcast pre-recorded audio clips that we had recorded previously to add a fresh element to their broadcasts.

Here you can listen to the interview YHA staffer Mick Horan did with BBC Radio Gloucestershire on day 3 of the mammoth cycle ride:

Many of the broadcasters took some of our broadcast clips to help illustrate their coverage, with Chelsey’s moving talk about how FAB gave her confidence back being particularly popular. You can listen to this piece below:

We also headed up the social media campaign during the cycle, ensuring that the public could interact with the campaign. This saw the number of Twitter followers to the Friends of FAB account more than double, the Facebook group jump in use and over 150 photos and videos added around the web!

The cycle has so far raised more than £20,000 for FAB – a fantastic amount for a great project! We’re really looking forward to seeing what else this amazing project can achieve.

As part of our work this summer with YHA (Youth Hostel Association) we have recorded the stories of families taking part in a pilot project. Families’ Activity Breaks – also know as FAB camps – are activity holidays being run by the Ministry of Defence in partnership with the YHA. Families who have lost a loved one in military service have been spending their holidays together as part of this pilot project to support bereaved children and their remaining parent. Activities include building rafts, abseiling, rock climbing and flying down zip wires. The aim of the camps is to provide a safe and nurturing atmosphere for families to deal with their grief and meet with other families who have been through a similar experience. While recording the material we liaised with Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 who were very interested in the subject matter. We delivered edited interviews to them which they used to make an audio feature and they also invited guests for a studio discussion. You can hear part of the programme here:

This is a great example of getting coverage for a project by being proactive and building relationships with the media. We were in no doubt that the material collected would be compelling and of interest to journalists and made sure to make contacts early on and alert our BBC producer contact about the content.