MPAN creates therapeutic language tool for National Missing Persons Week via whiteGREY
The Missing Person Advocacy Network (MPAN) and creative firm whiteGREY have launched a world-first therapeutic language tool designed to help affected family and friends navigate the experience of ambiguous loss.
The organisation describes ambiguous loss “a unique and harrowing type of grief experienced by the loved ones of long-term missing persons – considered by many psychologists to be the most traumatic type of loss”. Differently to standard grief, it is a continual loss, complicate and delaying the grieving process, leading to unresolved grief.
The earned media campaign launched ahead of National Missing Persons Week, which commenced on Sunday the 31st of July and will run through until the 6th of August. The Hope Narratives is a tool for putting emotional complexity of ambiguous loss into words, using the lived experience of others.
Created with global ambiguous loss expert, Dr Sarah Wayland, the Hope Narratives are designed to help people find a way through the grief, and to know they are not alone. The cards combine over 500 collective years of experience into 145 modular statements, which connect to become over 1.4 million possible Hope Narratives. According to the latest data from the Australian Federal Police (AFP), 145 is the number of Australians reported missing every day.
Loren O’Keeffe, founder and CEO of the Missing Persons Advocacy Network, said: “When a loved one goes missing, there is no right way to deal with it. You oscillate from hope to hopelessness, overwhelmed by the physical, mental and emotional burden, often feeling no one understands what you’re going through. By supporting loved ones with this very special set of cards, our aim is to address a complicated grief that’s historically been a misunderstood area of mental health for thousands of Australians.”
Joe Hill, executive creative director, whiteGREY Melbourne, said: “MPAN’s mission to support loved ones of missing persons and Dr Sarah Wayland’s incredible work on finding hope within ambiguous loss define a unique creative space. The Hope Narratives is a response to this space: a tool designed to help a community, made from the lived experiences of that community. We are incredibly proud to have played a role in the development of a narrative tool that will not only help the loved ones of missing persons, but will go on to set a precedent for ways this complex and devastating type of loss can be addressed around the world.”
Credit
Client: MPAN (Missing Persons Advocacy Network)
Founder and CEO: Loren O’Keeffe Creative Agency: whiteGREY
Managing Director: Magdalina Triantafyllidis
Strategy: Nathan Rogers
Group Account Director: Anusha Subeathar
Account Manager: Roxanna Dobraszkiewicz
Executive Creative Director: Joe Hill
Art Director / Copywriter: Kieran Adams
Copywriter: Tom Lander
Designer: Celia Mance
Producer: Alex Watson
Production Company: Kamber
Director / DOP: Rudi Siira
Editor / Producer: Brad Hopper
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