*Story development and research* Idea development

We started with the idea of child beauty pageants however after finding out there was a conference in Maidstone about homelessness we felt this was the more viable option so continued with homelessness.

My group initially made a spider diagram to put down a few of the big stories associated to homeless people and where we could go with them.

After securing the Maidstone conference about homeless people in the area for our live segment, we then prioritised which story we'd like to follow for our package;

Mental health/pets

Our initial plan was to follow up multiple articles we found online about issues that homeless people have with mental health, for example rates of depression are 10 times higher then in the general public. 
We were going to pair this with our pet idea as it is a well known fact that pets can help with mental health, this then would go on to interview vets (Trusty Paws Clinic) who look after homeless dogs for free.

However after emailing charities and vets clinics we did not receive any response from them after calling them to follow up so we left this idea.

www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/4192f844-c7d5-469f-b76e-09138800894d
www.thetrustypawsclinic.co.uk/about-us
www.scas.org.uk/mental-health-and-dogs/
www.homeless.org.uk/facts/our-research/homelessness-and-health-research
www.mentalhealth.org.uk/blog/homelessness-and-mental-health

Periods

We then moved to the idea of how homeless people deal with their periods. We looked at online websites and charities that help women get sanitary products.
I emailed these charities and asked for an interview as well as Paula Sherriff, an MP who supported the abolition of the Tampon tax. After receiving no email reply from anyone Zak is going to call them and try to follow up any leads.

thehomelessperiod.com/
www.pinkparcel.co.uk/help-homeless-women-on-their-periods/
menstrualhygieneday.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Homeless-Menstruation-Report.pdf
www.paulasherriff.org.uk/paula_sherriff_mp_hails_tampon_tax_victory

Soldiers

We've now moved onto ex-soldiers as our final back up story in case our period story doesn't come through, we've started doing general research and emailed local charities such as SSAFA as Maidstone is an army town.

www.ssafa.org.uk/help-you
www.rfea.org.uk/our-programmes-partnerships/project-nova/
www.soldiersoffthestreet.org/