Child Bereavement Charity’s ‘Remember on Mother’s Day’ Awareness Campaign

In 2009 the Child Bereavement Charity launches a major awareness campaign focused on Mother's Day, 22^nd March  2009.

The Child Bereavement Charity is asking people to spare a thought for those mothers bereaved of a child or those children bereaved of their Mum, on Mother's Day and every day.

The campaign came about as a result of conversations with bereaved parents and children who have told us how difficult occasions like Mother's Day and Father's Day can be for them when someone important in the family has died.  

Elements of the campaign include:

Launch Event at the Sladmore  Contemporary Art Gallery in London on 12^th March 2009

This high profile event provides the platform for the launch of our advertising campaign and includes an exhibition of children's paintings / drawings of their mother based on a new Bereavement Lesson Plan for schools (see below).   

Print and TV Advertising Awareness Campaign

The objective of the campaign is to raise awareness of the charity and its work, directing people to the website where they will find information and the full range of services the charity provides.  The advertising has been written and produced by award-winning advertising agency BBH who designed Child Bereavement Charity's new logo in 2007.

The campaign is focused around the theme of Silence, which has many different meanings in the context of the charity's work including the silence that is left when a child or parent dies; the silence that represents the taboo surrounding the whole issue of bereavement, particularly when children are involved; how that so often means people are at a loss as to what to say or do; and the silence that represents the listening skills used in offering support to the bereaved. The creative work highlights how painful the ‘silence' from the absence of everyday sounds can be when someone has died.

The 60-second television commercial, directed by award-winning Daniel Kleinman, features a mother and child at home, but although the child is making everyday noises, there's no sound to be heard; the child is only in the mother's memory.

Ten print executions have been created, shot by photographer Julian Germain. The print campaign follows the same idea as the film, using striking imagery of everyday objects that would normally make noise but now only bring silence to the bereaved mother or child's life. One execution features a child's skateboard that now lies idle, no longer creating scraping, rolling sounds. Another shows an image of a mother's keys, a familiar sound announcing Mum's return home, which can no longer be heard.

The campaign has been made possible at no cost to the charity through the generous help of a number of supporters, all of whom wish to remain anonymous. The campaign has been informed at each stage by bereaved families, some of whom have been directly supported by the charity and others who use the charity's online forum.

To view the print adverts click here

PR campaign

The objective of the related PR activity is to raise awareness of the charity and issues of child bereavement through a series of interviews and family case studies in the national media. This includes: national TV and radio interviews, national news, magazine features, local and regional news/features and relevant professional publications.

Development of New Bereavement  Lesson Plan for Schools

A new lesson plan is being piloted with a small number of local schools in the period leading up to Mother's Day to help schools to play a vital role in supporting and educating children about death and dying. The lesson plan has been designed to be used by teachers in primary schools and results in the children producing portraits of their mother or special person.

The children involved in the pilot of the lesson plan will have their paintings and drawings displayed at the Launch Event at the Sladmore Contemporary Art Gallery in London on 12^th March 2009. Dorney School, Bucks, St Andrew's Primary, Oxford, West Wycombe Combined School, Bucks, and Maidenhead Nursery, Berks, have taken part and circa 300 portraits are exhibited. 

Click here for details of the lesson plan which can be found within our Schools section

Commercial Partnership for Fundraising

Walker Books has granted Child Bereavement Charity a license to use the characters from the classic children's book ‘Guess How Much I Love You' for selected merchandising purposes. A miniature ‘Guess How Much I Love You' book is being sold through 100 Barclays branches in March 2009.