Communication Campaign for the Civil Parenting Policy

According to the 2013 Annual Report on Children’s Residential Care situation, Portugal had 8,445 children living in Institutional Housing. 59% of them between 12 and 17 years old.

The Institute of Child Support (IAC) presented these data in a comparative manner, concluding that Portugal is on top of the Western European countries, if one considers the proportion of institutionalized children.

In 2010, Portugal adopted a new policy named “Civil Parenting” that tries to overcome the city’s problem, by promoting a bond between these children and a candidate family, enabling an emotional support for the child, who has a long track record in the Institutional Housing and with little chance to return to the biological family.

This possibility has a simpler and faster process comparedto the regular adoption process and it facilitates the contact with the biological family if considered to be a positive condition to his full development. However, this policy has been given little usage, due to the lack of proper communication.

This project intends to overcome this problem by creating and executing a Communication Campaign in the Portuguese Media, to raise awareness of this policy amongst the general public and to incentive the population to apply for this role of a Civil Parent.

The ultimate goal is to increase the number of Civil Parents and decrease the number of children within Institutional Housing, who are also entitled to have the right of being part of a Family.

The project is divided into three stages: Conceptualisation stage, from November to December 2014; the Creative stage between January and March 2015; and the Execution stage where the Campaign will go live on April 2015. It will be displayed in TV formats on a national level and in press and outdoors formats within the city of Porto.