What is an All of Us Blog?At All of Us, our social media and newsletter are student-led, and we also wanted to offer our community the opportunity to write blogs about topics that interest them around the core themes of community & belonging. We want to publish blogs that will be of interest to care experienced and estranged students across the UK.
We are encouraging students to submit pitches for blog ideas, that will then go to the All of Us Community Catalyst team to be reviewed. We aim to publish around 2 blogs every month, so don't be discouraged if your pitch isn't selected immediately - we may come back to you at a later date. We then space out the blogs a little so they are not all published at the same time.
Briefing
Blogs must be based around the core theme of community/belonging for care experienced & estranged students. Topics must be relevant to students.
- Word count: 500-650 words. This equals about 1 page single-spaced or 2 pages double-spaced.
- We also ask that you submit 1-2 pictures, art or images that you want included in the blog as the featured image: these must be your own (not owned by someone else) and can be sent in once a blog pitch has been successful. The images can be - but do not need to be of you.
- You need to make it yours and not a generic advice or experience blog, that ai could have written - share something that helped you personally find a sense of belonging or community, i.e. be specific, unique and individual. You do not need to share your trauma and we ask that you only write what you are comfortable with sharing, there is no pressure to write beyond your own limits.
Potential topics
The blog is all about care experienced and estranged students - so we want you to feel free sharing what you think will resonate with others, and be helpful to them. There is a list of topics below, plus a space to add your own if you feel it has not been captured.
Successful blog pitches
If your blog pitch is successful, Ira Hakim - All of Us Programme Manager - and the All of Us team will be in touch by email to help you bring your idea to life. You will then have around 2 weeks to write the blog, but you absolutely can ask for longer if you need its. You can submit more than one blog pitch (submit each idea separately), and we will allow up to a maximum of five blogs to be authored by any individual, to allow a mix of student voices.
Successful pitches will then be paid/reimbursed at £20 by bank transfer upon completion and publication of the blog.
FAQs
- How do I find out if I am successful? We will send you an email directly.
- Personalisation: When we contact you, we will ask if you'd like us to upload a photo/image with the blog and a short bio/details about yourself such as your HEI/uni, where you are from, age etc. You can share as little or as much as you'd like.
- What rules are there on what I cannot include? For the interests of everyone's privacy and wellbeing, we ask that blogs do not include names of non-public identities, or identity-revealing information such as addresses and dates of birth, etc. We will go through this with you more when you write the blog.
Privacy - what happens with what you have shared with us here?
Your details will be stored for the purpose of potentially creating a blog for the All of Us platform. It will not be passed on to any third parties without your prior consent. Read more about our
Privacy Policy here. 