Petroc Student Collaborates With Women’s Aid
Jenny Pring, student on our Foundation Degree Health and Social Care has achieved a truly incredible accomplishment whilst studying her course. By harnessing her own personal experience, she collaborated with Mel B and Women’s Aid to help create a very powerful poster campaign.
When asked about the campaign, Jenny said: “During my first year, for one of the modules, I was tasked with building a biographical scrapbook of a celebrity, and I chose Melanie Brown aka ‘Scary Spice’ from The Spice Girls.
I wrote to her management company and asked for an interview not really expecting a response. However, to my amazement, Melanie agreed and I sent a list of questions for her to answer.
Knowing that Melanie is a survivor of domestic abuse and is a patron of Women’s Aid, I was keen to explore this with her, as I myself am a survivor. I asked her what she would like to see happen with support and guidance for men, women and children. Her answer was to have posters put on the backs of toilet doors – a place that is safe from the abuser that details the signs of coercive control with a helpline for anyone who needs it.
After thinking about it for a few days I decided to contact local businesses asking if they would be happy to put up a poster in their toilets to help raise awareness – the response was incredible.
Since speaking with Melanie, I have realised that I can use my experience to help others that find themselves in the same situation as I did. My hope is that people will see the campaign and either display a poster in the toilets of their workplace or get the help that they may need.”
Clark Denby, Jenny’s lecturer, says: “Jenny has produced a great piece of assessed work for her studies, and through this has developed a strong professional working relationship with Melanie Brown.”
Since creating the posters, ITV news also ran the story to help promote the campaign and encourage businesses to display the posters.
We are so proud of Jenny for all of her hard work in creating this fantastic campaign. You can view the ITV news story online, and the poster design is available to print.
