&Partners, Match & Wood and Cue Sound team up with radio campaign to help home foster kids

Finding foster carers for the 5,000+ children living in out-of-home care in WA is a challenging task. If you happen to be in the 5 percent of children with high support needs – due to trauma, illness and disability – your odds of finding a suitable carer are much less.

Throw in a pandemic, a struggling economy and community services organisations with limited advertising budgets, and the task becomes even more daunting.

The project team – including &Partners, Match & Wood and Cue Sound – volunteered their time and resources to develop and execute a Uniting foster care campaign aimed at a new generation of foster carers.

Rather than empty-nesters, modern-day foster carers are more likely to be younger – and many are couples with their own children.

The Uniting campaign to target the new generation of foster carers launched this week, with a focus on people with more ‘mumness’ or ‘dadness’ than they know what to do with.

Listen to the campaign:

For Dav Tabeshfar, Creative Director at &Partners, and Lucinda Kitney, Communications Advisor at Match & Wood, the decision to work pro bono on the campaign was an easy one.

“It was no sacrifice at all – working with the team at Uniting WA was easily the most rewarding thing we’ve done this year,” said Dav. “And when you know your work might help a kid find a loving home, there’s not a moment’s hesitation; you do it because you can,” he said.

“For many, 2020 has been a year to reconsider priorities, and this provided us with a unique opportunity to connect with potential foster carers when the importance of family is at the forefront of people’s minds,” added Lucinda.

Uniting WA Chief Executive Officer Amanda Hunt said the support from local businesses has come at a critical time.

“Children are coming into care at a younger age, presenting with more complex support needs and staying in the system for longer, so the need for foster carers has never been greater,” said Ms Hunt. “The commitment we’ve seen from local agencies to deliver an outstanding campaign – at a time of significant economic challenge – is so humbling, and testament to the power of community collaboration in Perth,” she said.

The campaign runs across social media and radio (Mix 94.5FM) for five weeks from Monday 9 November.

Learn more at unitingwa.org.au/fostercare.