Communications Plan for Child Abuse Centers

Today in class we were asked to create a communications plan for a company that is not accessing the population through the means of social media. For this assignment I chose to focus on the province of Ontario’s Child Aid Societies (CAS) and its corresponding agency Boost – Child Abuse Prevention and Intervention Agency. These two identities are very closely knit, and for that reason I will be blogging about each within the child welfare system. I will also propose a social media venture for the organizations to take.

According to the Boost – Child Abuse Prevention and Intervention website, it is an organization dedicated to “eliminating abuse and violence in the lives of children, youth and their families.”

Boost achieves this goal by providing programs to educate the community on prevention tactics, assessments and treatments for abused children. They claim to be a national leader on the topic and through their grandiose corporate funding generated through there Butterfly Ball, they have the capital to back their stance.

However, what Boost does not have is an effective measure to ensure the at all workers involved with Children Aid Societies are trained to implement the responsibility associated with their job. In other words the offices of Boost and CAS do not have any transparency policy or initiative set up to ensure the free flow of factual information.

This has been discovered by Irwin Elman, who has published his devastating findings in a 25-page report entitled 90 Deaths; 90 Voices Silenced. The Toronto Star also picked up the story on Monday February 23, 2009 and ran it on the paper’s front cover (above the fold).

He states, “these are children that we, as a province, have determined are in some peril and should be receiving the best of what we, as their parents, have to offer.” he said. “So how could 90 of them die? I want all of us to be thinking about that.” Toronto Star, Monday February 23, 2009: A6.

And we are thinking about it as public outcry is evident. On the Toronto Star webpage the comments section about the published story are numerous. Slogans such as “CAS don’t help, they destroy” are present and a taste of anger is evident in the postings.

When I first read the article anger jumped to me as well. Then a feeling of sadness and helplessness for the involved children came to reside inside me.

I have become even more disheartened as I have been tracking this case of the child welfare system for the last month, and no response has been made public. This makes me wonder if Mr. Elman’s report is too factual. For that reason I have chosen to do my in-class assignment on this topic.

There is obviously a need to re-vamp this program as “the office receives about 3,000 phone calls for help each year from among more than 20,000 children and youth in contact with Children’s Aid.” Toronto Star, Monday February 23, 2009: A6.

As a current student trying to enter the communications profession I have a communications plan to propose to the organizations of Boost and CAS.

First I would suggest that both organizations review their mission statement, their objectives and their goals.

Once all of that is clear to the management team, I believe that the workers within the organizations must be aware of their job description. What is their role and responsibility within the organizations to ensure transparency of problems to elicit proactive solutions. If the workers on the ground level with the children are not reporting horrendous acts that are leading to child deaths, no correction methods can take place.

I admit this can take some time as it may lead to an entire child welfare system overhaul, but in the mean time there are social media venues that the child welfare system can take advantage of to ensure the public that they are in fact doing something to stop the preventable deaths.

I propose that the organizations utilize outlets such as You Tube to deliver their message of awareness and progress to the public.

An hour video responding to the February 23rd article would have eased tensions. The public needs to be informed of the progress. Bi-monthly videos could be posted, showcasing the progress that has been made, or new developments to the plan. There could also be a comments section to elicit public response and ideas to help benefit the system and most importantly the children.

After reviewing the Boost website, I noticed the only ‘new media’ postings they had were advertisement campaigns, not awareness campaigns. I believe awareness campaigns posted not only on their site but on Youtube will allow greater transparency of the organizations (as Boost is the mother organization as it provides the training and programs) leading to an ability to quell public outrage.

People get upset when a problem like this is unveiled. However, people get even more upset when there is no plan in place to correct the problem. I believe that people are more forgiving a system trying to correct itself, then a system that tries to hide its problems or inefficiencies.

A awareness campaign posted on a social media outlet like You Tube will not only get the message of change out to the public but it will also align itself with Boost’s strategic plan (which is posted on their website).

The strategic plan posted on the Boost website holds the logo of the Toronto Child Abuse Center, and is entitled TCAC 2006: The Next Five Years. It is now 2009, thus the organizations are in the 3rd year of their designed plan.

On the last page of the plan it states:

“Each year, for the next five years, annual objectives will be established and priorities determined by the Board and staff. At the end of each year, the objectives will be reviewed and evaluated to determine if TCAC is successful in meeting its stated goals. We believe that this process of establishing and measuring our objectives will allow us to move forward on a clear and strategic path for the next five years.” TCAC 2006: The Next Five Years: p7.

However, there has been no updates present on the website from the last 3 years. Is this an organizational problem or an administrative problem? I don’t know…I don’t work there.

In this moment of crisis, I propose that TCAC and its member organizations and offices (Boost, CASs) actually review their plan, re-work it to solve the problem and post that solution along with its new plan on You Tube for the public to review.