Tips and tutorials

How to compile a news feed on welfare issues (or any other) – part 1: what’s going on?

Earlier this week we published our list of 19 places to follow welfare developments. In the first of a three-part series, we explain how to get your own list of useful feeds into one page, and share it with others.

Step 1: Use a ‘personalisable homepage’ news reader like Netvibes or Feedly

There are a number of services that allow you to follow multiple sources of news at the same time – often called ‘news readers’ or ‘RSS readers’. I used Netvibes for compile this list, because you can share those lists with other people, but you may have another preference (Feedly and Flipboard are also nice, but currently don’t have the same option). The video below is just one of many providing an introduction to Netvibes:

Follow the instructions above on creating an account with Netvibes and adding feeds.

If you want your feeds page to be seen by others

If you want your feeds to be public, however, you’ll need to enable the public dashboard first. To do this: Continue reading How to compile a news feed on welfare issues (or any other) – part 1: what’s going on? →

Housing, links, Tips and tutorials

19 places to get updates on welfare reform

If you want to keep track of what’s happening in welfare reform we’ve compiled this list of some of the most useful – and varied – sources on everything from the bedroom tax to child poverty.

We’ve also put together a dashboard if you want to follow these on a single easy-to-check webpage. You can follow a public version here, or add it to Netvibes here.

Here’s who we’ve added – can you think of others?

1. The Guardian – topic: welfare

The Guardian is the UK newspaper that invests the most in covering welfare issues.

Their website allows you to follow specific topics such as ‘benefits‘ (within the Society section), as well as individual journalists, such as Patrick Butler. But we’ve picked the general ‘politics – welfare’ topic first because it sometimes includes stories written by other journalists that aren’t classified under either of the other. 

This story on Nick Clegg’s criticism of child benefit policy, for example, comes under ‘child benefit’ rather than ‘benefits’, and is written by a politics reporter – but it does still come under the welfare topic.

2. Inside Housing: news

With so little specialist coverage in the press, specialist magazines are often a better place to look for welfare-related news. Continue reading 19 places to get updates on welfare reform →

review

Review of 2013 on Help Me Investigate

Over on the main Help Me Investigate blog there’s a review of what we did across the four HMI sites in 2013, including HMI Welfare:

“Help Me Investigate Welfare began looking at zero hour contracts at the start of 2013 before it hit the mainstream news agenda, as Danielle Hudspith reported on the Number of employees on zero hour contracts doubling in 6 years. We were also investigating thebedroom tax early, with Abbey Hartley, Enya Quin and Daniel Jones looking at the potential impact in March with the Birmingham Mail and writing a fuller report in ‘The Bedroom Tax in Birmingham: no place to go‘

“We worked with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to scrape data on payday lenders, with housing charity Shelter on the changing housing sector, and spoke at a workshop organised by London charities on welfare reform.

“In July the DWP changed its “open data” tool StatXplore after Help Me Investigate raised concerns“

Read it in full here (the review also talks about the plan to focus on welfare in 2014).

Communities, links, mental health

Welfare issues in York: 7 organisations to follow

Fiona Parker and Neil Johnston, freelance journalists and final year students at York, have chosen seven key centres in the city to follow on welfare issues.

1. York Teaching Hospital

The teaching hospital in York has over 700 beds and is located fifteen minutes from the centre of the City.

The York Teaching Hospital Trust, the group which manages several hospitals including York’s caters for approximately 53,000 people.

The group’s communications Twitter account can be followed @YorkTeachingNHS. Also follow the area’s clinical commissioning group (CCG) – York Vale – @ValeofYorkCCG. Continue reading Welfare issues in York: 7 organisations to follow →

Homelessness, links

15 York Twitter accounts to follow in 2014 on mental health and joblessness

Neil Johnston and Fiona Parker, freelance journalists and final year students in York, have put together a list of Twitter accounts to follow for anyone interested in welfare issues in the area. You can also follow the list here.

1. david3012 @david3012

Director of Development at @TheRetreatYork , sci-fi geek, motorhome owner and lover of all things Dutch – hows that for a combination!

2. The Retreat @TheRetreatYork

Charity Providing Specialist Mental Health Care Since 1792: For People, Not For Profit Continue reading 15 York Twitter accounts to follow in 2014 on mental health and joblessness →

Housing, Tips and tutorials

How to find new leads in an old news report on empty property

empty property in Croydon - image by United Diversity
empty property in Croydon – image by United Diversity

Background material and general reporting on an area can often provide all sorts of clues and leads for further, deeper investigation.

This piece from the Birmingham Mail is a particularly good example. On the surface it is a rather general report on an empty property in the city – but along the way it includes all sorts of helpful pointers if you want to dig further. Continue reading How to find new leads in an old news report on empty property →

events, Housing

Welfare reform and data: telling London’s benefit cap stories

Representatives of the voluntary sector gathered on Monday for an event to share good practice on using data on the impact of welfare reform – and Help Me Investigate was there to cover it.

The Welfare Reform and Data seminar, organised by Ade Sofola of Save the Children‘s 4in10 campaign, hosted speakers from the New Policy Institute (npi), and Help Me Investigate’s own Paul Bradshaw who live-tweeted from the event on the @HMIwelfare Twitter account.

Hannah Aldridge from the New Policy Institute presented information and data about child poverty in London while Bradshaw spoke about the stories that can be told with data, how collaborative investigations work, and ways of increasing engagement with ongoing stories. Continue reading Welfare reform and data: telling London’s benefit cap stories →

Communities

The respectful charity shop built on social franchising

craftgoodsThe Trussell Trust has reason to feel proud about spreading its humanitarian vision, stepping in to give three days of crisis food nationwide. It is a vision that David McAuley said his fantastic team buys into and one that has also caught the interest of groups around the country.

The uptake of their simple food bank model, what Mr McAuley called a ‘social franchise’ has seen their goal for 200 food banks opening this year, approach a total of 400. Continue reading The respectful charity shop built on social franchising →

Communities

Savage times, but food banks act to put bread on the table

Tescos collection Many supermarket customers dropped food donations into Tesco trolleys over the weekend for those UK people struggling with food poverty. The traditional habit of feeding the birds snippets seems to be replaced with more serious concerns.

The Trussell Trust’s national food collection across 3000 Tescos stores on the busiest weekend of the year meets an urgent need, as benefit changes continue to hurt vulnerable people. Rising living costs have pushed many over their financial limits.

Food banks are seeing a 7% increase in people coming with benefit-related issues

David McAuley, director of operations for the Trussell Trust, stopped at the Salisbury Tesco Metro. He said that since April their 400 food banks have seen a 7% increase in people coming with benefit-related issues.

With the need to remedy this as soon as possible, he said:

“The big thing at the minute is where is the Defra report on Food poverty?”

Mr McAuley was visiting stores across Hampshire and Dorset to see how the collections were going. Continue reading Savage times, but food banks act to put bread on the table →

Helping connect those investigating the welfare system