Truth Be Told… An Award-Winning Podcast!

Truth Be Told: Adoption Stories won a Silver British Podcast Award in the Parenting category. Ellie-Rose, one of the young contributors from the series two finale, shares her experience of producing the podcast and attending the prestigious awards ceremony in London!

 

Making the podcast

In early 2023, I worked on the Takeover episode of the Truth Be Told podcast with a bunch of my friends from the Connect and Connected groups.

Recording the Takeover episode was important to me because I’ve never shared my personal experiences of adoption before. I also wanted to get involved to educate individuals on the issue of adoption.

It was such a good opportunity to provide people with a better understanding of adoption, as well as give me more confidence to talk about specific topics.

 

 

Challenging misconceptions 

I felt that misconceptions around adoption was a very important topic to discuss, due to the lack of understanding people currently have.

 

By sharing our unique stories and opinions, I hope people will begin to think before they speak. Not all adopted people are ‘naughty’ or ‘unlucky’ because they were adopted.

 

I hope listeners take away a couple of points from the podcast, including why we, as adopted people, may sometimes feel a certain way. We may have struggles that come from our experience of adoption, for example, attachment issues. But most importantly, I want everyone to understand that we are no different from ‘normal’ people.

 

The Awards Night

I was intrigued about going to the British Podcast Awards ceremony. I wanted to be involved in the celebrations to recognise the hard work and commitment of everyone who created the podcast. For me, it felt overwhelmingly good to attend and represent our podcast. I felt proud of myself and the others who had taken part.

 

I was looking forward to seeing Truth Be Told, up against others and seeing what they were all about.

 

When I got to the venue, I was a little nervous as I was the only one there from the podcast crew, but I was also very excited. There were lots of people on the red-carpet queuing to get in, which was very nerve-racking for me.

 

However, once inside – with the help of a glass of prosecco that was handed to us on arrival - I started to feel more at ease. There were pillows all over the walls with the award-nominated podcast artwork on them. Seeing our Truth Be Told pillow was amazing.

 

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Winning Silver!

There were six podcasts named in our category, with a few being quite well-known. So initially, I wasn’t expecting to win and was just enjoying being there at the awards. When the Bronze award was called out and it wasn’t ours, I thought to myself, ‘we haven’t won anything but I’m still really proud of everyone’.

 

However, they then they announced Truth Be Told as the silver award winner! I looked over at the team I went with and had a massive smile on my face - I couldn’t believe it. We did it! I had no words.

 

At the awards, there were lots of celebrities all with well-known podcasts wandering around. I met Mark and Roxanne (LadBaby) and Sam Thompson from Made in Chelsea.

 

My favourite part of the night was obviously receiving our award, but a personal highlight was

probably taking pictures with LadBaby - it made my night.  I was very excited when I saw them and asked to have some photos taken with them. They were so genuine and made me feel very welcome and proud of what I had achieved.

 

   

Towards the end of the ceremony, we picked up our award from the side of the room and had some photos taken on the pink carpet. It felt very surreal but amazing, all at the same time. I felt like a bit of a celebrity and was thinking ‘Is this what it’s like?’

 

When I told people at the event what our podcast was about, they thought it was fascinating. They asked lots of questions about adoption, the podcast itself, and who was involved in it.

 

I also took over the National Adoption Service social channels for the night, sharing my night live from the awards, which was fun! I would love to do something like this again…So, how about making Truth Be Told series three?

 

Listen to Ellie and the other young people’s episode here.

   

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Posted at 8:53 AM, 25/10/2023 | Back to the Blog

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