#StopTheMop
Advertisements about fostering have, in my professional opinion, never been great. In fact, I can understand why marketing agency ThisisGoho, who describe themselves on Twitter as “living it up in London Town” wanted to take a different approach.
Their fresh approach however, has me worried. In fact, from the title of the campaign alone, I am shocked. Swap The Mop is a campaign which encourages people to ‘put their love to better use’ by swapping a mop for a child in care.
A mop is an inanimate object used for domestic service. It has nothing in common with a child in care. In houses across the world, mops are kept in cupboards. We found out yesterday in the publication of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry findings that as recently as the 1980s children in some institutions were thrown into cupboards as a barbaric form of abuse.
I must confess, I do have a vested interest. I am a communications professional who grew up in care. I do believe though, that this gives me an insight into the backroom where decisions are made and the pitches where ideas are born.
I cannot understand, no matter how I look at it how this campaign came to be. The only words which appear in the “short film” which avoids using any dialogue, because it’s a mop, is the call to action. This call to action is “Do you ever feel empty inside?”. The people this campaign appeals to are told that if they “feel empty inside” they can find fulfilment in fostering. That rather than putting their love into an inanimate object, they can take a child who has likely suffered from trauma and bring them up instead.
There are so many reasons that this campaign is worrying. The call to action is one, the other is that the child in the video is in fact, a mop.
The Mop is a prop which is used in this story to replace a child. Their voice doesn’t matter, the actions they take don’t matter and in fact, they exist explicitly to allow the mop holder to fulfil some desire.
In fact, throughout the video it becomes clear that the mop has no feelings, thoughts or desires. It’s there, explicitly to fulfil the desire of the man and woman who, for want of better terms, look after it.
The worrying thing though is the level of collusion that exists. The parents present their fiction without the teachers, university lecturers or even photographers intervening. We know that not saying anything when we suspect something is wrong, is a theme throughout many different abuse inquiries involving children in care.
The sad thing is beneath the surface, there is some nice messaging. The care the mop seems to receive is lifelong and loving. Every single person coming into care should receive lifelong and loving care. They just shouldn’t be personified in mop form to do this.
Are Little Acorns Fostering looking for the right people? The foster parents who take children in, in the hopes of feeling less empty and using children to assuage those feelings are not the right people. It isn’t controversial to say that we should not be seeking people to fulfil their own emptiness as a motive for fostering.
I would like to see this campaign withdrawn immediately. It is disrespectful and downright dangerous. I would like to ask you to take to social media and ask Little Acorns fostering to #StopTheMop.
