New Barnardos campaign seeks to highlight realities of child abuse in Australia
Child protection charity Barnardos Australia has launched its latest fundraising appeal, with a campaign depicting real injuries suffered by children referred to their care.
The integrated media campaign is based on a real child abuse case and the creative features depictions of caseworker files, doctors’ reports and foster carer correspondence.
“No doubt people will find it uncomfortable seeing a child’s injury from an act of abuse depicted in an X-ray,” said Amy-Lee Hopkins Barnardos brand and reputation manager.
“The story of 2 year old ‘Max’ who suffered a broken leg at the hands of an adult is horrifying and sadly it is a real Barnardos case. Max’s story shows the reality of what our caseworkers see on a daily basis and what is usually hidden from the general public.”
The campaign was produced in-house by the Barnardos’ Brand and Reputation team, who were the team who won the Mumbrella Award for Marketing Team of the Year for their Count Yourself In foster care recruitment campaign.
The campaign will be a direct-mail appeal, but also cover outdoor, radio, print and digital advertising.
Barnardos said the idea for the campaign came from the team recognising that most Australians find levels of child abuse confronting. The team had previously had a campaign featuring a photograph of a child’s grave rejected by a major outdoor media company after it was deemed too disturbing.
“We feel it is vitally important for people to know that Australian children suffer from abuse every day and die at alarming rates. We hope this campaign allows us to gain greater support from the public to fund our programs and stop child abuse.” Lee-Hopkins said.
The latest report on Child Protection from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported every 15 days an Australian child dies from assault and over 43,000 children are not able to live at home because of abuse or neglect.
Nic Christensen
