Overview of recent campaigns
Young carers (2006)
Young carers are children and young people who help look after a member of the family who is sick, disabled or has mental health problems.With this campaign We were aiming to make the nation aware of young carers, and are asked the public to give their permission for a young carer to have a break from their responsibilities. Barnardo’s runs 14 projects throughout the UK that support young carers and keep families together. We provide various services that make it possible for a child to just be a child.
New Life (2005)
Our New Life campaign highlights some of the contemporary issues facing children: abuse through prostitution, domestic violence, parental neglect and drug and alcohol misuse. The extent of these issues is often hidden but the campaign brings them into the public arena and highlighted how adult behaviours can affect the happiness and ongoing development of children. We also wanted to highlight the dedicated work of our project workers in giving vulnerable children a new life.
Child poverty campaign (2003)
This campaign highlighted the potential detrimental effects poverty can have on a child’s future. Sadly, the damaging impact of poverty is cyclical, and without help children born into poverty are more likely to suffer ill-health, be unemployed or homeless and to become involved in offending, drug and alcohol abuse and abusive relationships in adulthood. The images used highlighted some of these potential outcomes and were advertised in the tabloid and broadsheet press.
Stolen Childhood (2002)
Stolen Childhood was launched in an attempt to change the public’s perceptions regarding children who are abused through prostitution. We used five press advertisements, one TV advertisement and a poster campaign in order to communicate our message. The imagery showed children with aged faces to capture the concept that abuse through prostitution steal’s lives.
Emotional Death (2001)
This campaign attempted to demonstrate that disadvantaged children can easily grow up to lead tragic lives if they are not given the help they need at an early age. Our aim was to communicate that Barnardo's can help transform the lives like those featured in the adverts, and give them the chance to fulfil their potential. The copy described the childhood event that led to their death: sexual abuse from a relative, exclusion from school, being beaten by a parent. Without Barnardo’s help they emotionally died as children, their fates sealed from the moment their rights were abused.
Giving Children Back Their Future (1999-2000)
This campaign included seven press advertisements which depicted children in adult situations, such as a baby injecting heroin, a toddler clutching a bottle of whisky and another preparing to commit suicide. The advertisements aimed to show what potentially disastrous adulthoods await many of the disadvantaged and vulnerable young people Barnardo's works with. The main copy line always gives the child’s name and current adult age. The advertisements were also designed to force a reappraisal of Barnardo's and all it stands for: a contemporary and relevant charity. There was also one advertisement which showed the baby in the original ‘heroin baby’ advertisement as a happy, healthy youngster, the advertisement had the tag line ‘the ad we wish we could have run’.
