Peace of Mind Campaign
Peace of Mind is an awareness and funds raising campaign by the children’s charity Kids Company. The campaign aims to change the way that vulnerable children are supported in the UK by increasing understanding of how children’s brains are affected by maltreatment, abuse and neglect.
The campaign website features a virtual brain composed of 1 million socially networkable ‘neurons' which are available to supporters for a donation of £5. Each neuron has its own unique URL and can be customised with a picture and a message. This message can then be posted to popular social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, Twitter and Bebo. It is intended that social networking will help supporters to grow their own groups by asking friends, colleagues and family to get their own neuron and link together to form a group. Linked neurons automatically cluster together to form a group within the virtual brain.
£1.6m from the campaign will be spent on a research programme to study the effects of childhood maltreatment on psychological and neurophysiological development in collaboration with clinicians and researchers. Partners include; Anna Freud Centre, University College London, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, and Oxford University. This research will examine the effects and consequences of trauma on the developing brains of children and young people. The results will provide an international resource into the effects of child abuse and neglect. Research will also investigate the effects of sustained and loving care, an attachment based model developed by Kids Company which has been independently evaluated and found to be highly effective.
£3.4m from the campaign will be used to continue Kids Company's work supporting over 14,000 vulnerable children and young people as well as to help fund a new centre in London, the Heart Yard. The Heart Yard is a Therapeutic Sanctuary where London's most vulnerable children receive intensive emotional and psychological support. The centre offers specialised psychiatric care, child and adolescent psychotherapy, dance and movement, play and arts therapies, as well as complementary health care.