Summary
TAD talks were set up to provide an opportunity for people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) to share their own inspirational stories in order to encourage, empower and motivate others who have diabetes or care for someone with diabetes.
Innovation
The TAD talks provide a platform for people with diabetes to share their inspirational stories with an audience who also have diabetes or care for someone with diabetes. This type of peer-to-peer education and sharing is novel. The speakers and audience have a natural empathy with, and understanding of, each other that generates energy, enthusiasm and motivation. There is a broad selection of talks, ranging from feats of sporting endurance and success, to stories of living with diabetes for 60 years, as well as a personal history of changing diabetes care. The audience encourages the speakers and one another, plus everyone has opportunities to network and share during the intervals between talks. The sessions are chaired by professional presenters who have personal experience of diabetes. People who live with diabetes have a huge number of hours of experience and expertise in their own personal health compared with their medical providers, who may see them for no more than a few hours per year. The cumulative expertise in a room of 250 people with diabetes is immense and provides opportunities for problem-solving and sharing in a unique way. It also sets the foundation for a community of peers who can provide ongoing support and education to each other. It is an extremely effective adjunct to medical professional care.
Results
The effectiveness of the initiative can be seen in the scoring of the evaluation. Attendees were asked to rate aspects of the event from the choices ‘hugely valuable’, ‘valuable’, ‘somewhat valuable’ or ‘not valuable’. On the variety of speakers, over 80% chose ‘hugely valuable’ or ‘valuable’. On the opportunity to network, and to ask direct questions to the speaker, over 81% ticked hugely valuable or valuable, while over 74% said they had found learning more about T1D in general hugely valuable or valuable. When asked about outcome and how the respondents felt after attending the event, 82.6% reported that they were more positive about living or supporting someone with T1D. A total of 69.6% were more motivated to achieve goals, while 58% said they felt more connected with a local network of like-minded people.
Dissemination and Sustainability
Two events were held before December 2017 and a further event outside the time frame of this award. Novo Nordisk is committed to ongoing support for the event and the possibility of charging the audience a nominal payment of £5-10 in the future, to cover the cost of catering and the venue, has been discussed. Of attendees asked if they would be prepared to pay to attend, 37.5% indicated that they would pay up to £15 and 43% said they would pay up to £10. As there have been more requests for registration than places available, financial sustainability appears secure. All the videos of the talks have been loaded on the website www.talkingaboutdiabetes.co.uk, ensuring that the talks can be viewed by a much wider audience than present on the day. In addition, social media provided an invaluable platform to promote the TAD event, facilitate in-depth, real-time discussions about topics covered during the event, and allowed conversations to continue post-event. Twitter was used to good effect, with 1,588 tweets posted using the hashtag #TADtalk2017. Speakers, audience members and the wider online diabetes community were able to interact and engage in live conversations inspired by the event talks in a welcoming and open environment. Importantly, social media offers an arena for attendees from multiple backgrounds and age groups to continue the conversations post-event using the hashtag and connect with each other independently, encouraging a supportive T1D online network. Online media coverage shared the highlights from TAD, as well as the event’s key messages, to a wider online audience outside of social media, with the talks featured in blogs, the Diabetes Times and Pharma Times.
Method
Novo Nordisk, Diabetes UK, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Abbott were approached for funding and a six-month time frame was set to organise the event. The date selected was chosen to avoid any clash with other diabetes conferences or meetings and an affordable venue was identified on a university campus. Existing contacts were used to identify six speakers. Novo Nordisk also provided support from its PR company. Diabetes networks and social media were used to advertise the event and an online registration page was set up with a cap at 200 attendees. Speakers were briefed to speak for a maximum of 20 minutes and to use the minimum possible number of slides. They were asked to look at the TAD talks for inspiration on their style of delivery. A website was developed to host the films and to provide further information about TAD. A feedback questionnaire was given to the audience members to complete at the end of the day in order to measure outcomes.
