Challenge: “For Child Safety”

Create an opportunity to improve strategic working relationships between law enforcement and county-level child-protective agencies.

Mission

One state’s CPS agencies and local law-enforcement organizations worked together daily to put out fires associated with child safety, BUT rarely did these two groups come together to proactively educate the public to prevent these sad and sometimes deadly incidents. McFarland recommended the state collect insights from local law enforcement about the most prominent threats to child safety in their cities and counties. From there, McFarland worked with CPS agencies across the state and their respective law-enforcement entities to convert that insight into county-specific joint public-education campaigns. More than 30 law-enforcement agencies participated in the survey. The majority of those participants indicated that parental drug use was the biggest risk to child safety in their communities. Joint public-education outreach was developed between the participating law enforcement agencies and their respective county CPS agencies. This effort resulted in scores of media placements and interviews, all designed to help the public act as first responders in preventing child abuse and neglect in their communities.

Result

Improved community awareness! This effort resulted in crucial insights specific to each community’s unique child-safety challenges, and produced scores of media placements and interviews – all designed to help the public act as first responders in preventing child abuse and neglect in their neighborhoods.

Client Feedback

Both the CSP agencies and the participating law-enforcement professionals expressed enthusiasm and appreciation for the campaign outcomes, and for the assistance to implement an awareness campaign that was often difficult to tackle in light of their demanding daily jobs.