Organisation type
Charity/third sector
Sector
Disability, diversity, equity and inclusion
Health and social care
Service
Barley partnered with veterans’ housing charity Stoll over four years to deliver a national charity communications campaign focused on preventing homelessness among former service personnel. Stoll’s objective was clear: encourage local authorities to identify whether people presenting as homeless had a military background, and to report this consistently. We were asked to design and deliver an integrated programme — spanning media, social media and public affairs — to secure policy and practice change across the UK.
To cut through a crowded policy landscape, we needed to put the voices of veterans and frontline support workers at the heart of the story. We developed a central campaign film for Stoll’s website and social channels, supported by a case study video highlighting the work of local councils and housing teams who help veterans into stable accommodation.
Achieving sustained change required strong political visibility. We coordinated a House of Lords reception, attended by ministers, to launch new research revealing the scale of the issue. The event was tightly integrated with media outreach: while the reception took place, we arranged interviews with homeless veterans for BBC Radio 5Live and Sky News, generating powerful, real-time coverage.Across the campaign, we acted as Stoll’s strategic partner — shaping messaging, advising on policy engagement, and ensuring activity across digital, media and public affairs worked as one coherent programme, consistent with the goals of a policy influence campaign.
The campaign delivered meaningful, lasting change. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government updated its guidance, mandating local authorities to record the number of homeless veterans in their quarterly housing returns — a key step towards better support and targeted interventions.To help councils put this change into practice, we coordinated guidance in partnership with 20 housing and veterans’ organisations. We also re-cut campaign footage into new short films celebrating best practice, which were shared at 100 in-person briefings with local authorities. The campaign built long-term momentum and significantly increased Stoll’s reach, with social activity strengthened through our role as their social media agency.
new followers
engagement rate
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Working with Barley is great. I like the way they have taken the time to get to know our organisation and understand our needs and those of the vulnerable Veterans we serve. They are like an extension of our in house team.
Ed Tytherleigh
CEO, Stoll
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