For children's mental health.
UnLtd has brought together Dentsu Creative and Foundation to launch a national campaign for KidsXpress, a children's mental health charity.
The campaign ‘See the Signs. Heal the Hurt’ is launching this Mental Health Month to help parents and carers recognise distress in children as soon as possible.
Margo Ward, founder and CEO of KidsXpress, said mental ill-health affects 1-in-7 Australian children and around half of all mental health issues emerge before 14 years of age.
"We want everyone to be able to identify when a child needs help. The signs of mental ill health in children can often be overlooked or misunderstood," she said.
"But if adults know what to look for, we can provide support early and help stop issues from escalating into adolescence and adulthood.”
Offering the right type of services for children and making them easily accessible is also key. KidsXpress supports those under 12 with expressive therapy, an approach that is widely considered to be best practice in the treatment of childhood trauma.
Ward said children don’t always have the words to express what they are feeling.
"Which is why using creative modalities like art, music, drama and play are such powerful tools used by our therapists to help unlock what is going on for kids,” she said.
The campaign was created by Dentsu Creative. Ian Hartley, managing partner from Dentsu Creative, said the everyone has been touched by mental health difficulties.
"Our own or someone else’s - and many of us have kids, so you could say our hearts were in the brief all the way. We were so happy to be able to support KidsXpress in their mission to better children’s mental health," hesaid.
The media strategy and planning were done by Foundation who have rallied the industry to support this important campaign.
Louis Mayne, head of investment from Foundation, said when the company first learned of the work that KidsXpress does, Foundation jumped at the chance to help it get its ‘See the signs. Heal the hurt’ message out there.
"Knowing how much our media exposure can help build brand awareness for KidsXpress and ensure recognition for their incredible initiatives, we could not be more grateful for the support our partners have shown, whose generosity has far exceeded our expectations," said Mayne.
"Foundation is honoured to be a part of this campaign and we can’t wait to see the results.”
The campaign is running across TV, outdoor, radio, press and digital with pro bono media kindly donated by Acast, Amazon, Are Media, ARN, Broadsheet, Concrete Playground, Foxtel, GCA Media Network, Inmobi, JCDecaux, JOLT, Ladbible, MOOVE media, Motio, News Corp, Nine, Nova, Ogury, oOh!, Optus, QMS, Samsung, SCA, Seven, Teads, The Guardian, Torch, Urban List, Val Morgan, Westfield and Yahoo.
To help identify the signs of mental health difficulties in children, families can access a free downloadable guide on the KidsXpress website.
