Action for Children launches a new advert featuring actor Larry Lamb interviewing a social worker about shocking levels of child abuse and neglect.
Children family practitioner Anne-Marie Cowell tells Lamb about some of the case she has worked with. Anne-Marie is one of the Charities family support practitioners which means that she helps children and families who are struggling with neglect, domestic violence and difficult behaviour.
She states: “I came to work with children in care because I was kind of fascinated by the awful story of Baby P and when he died I wanted to try and make a difference. Prior to that I was a photographer and had been for years so I completely retrained and joined a local authority and started supporting children in care.”
“Now I do lots and lots of different things. I visit families and children and work one to one in the family home, I teach parenting courses, and I work with other agencies to help make recommendations on how we can best safeguard children who need help.”
A long term supporter of Action for Children, Larry Lamb made the film as part of a new campaign to drive more donors to the charity.
“I’m a passionate supporter of the work Action for Children does and spending a day with Anne-Marie made me realise just how vital its work is in helping and supporting the most vulnerable children in our society”, says Larry.
“Talking to her as we spent the day together filming opened my eyes to just how easy it is for young kids or young adults to slip through the net and just how hard the charity’s staff and services work to stop that happening. If this ad can help in any way at all to raise funds or increase awareness of the important work the charity does I’m more than happy to be involved.’’
Anne-Marie Cowell continues: “If we as Action for Children weren’t there to support these children they would go under the radar and things would get progressively worse for them until they were finally seen by local authority and social services stepped in.”
“I think we prevent an awful lot of children from being really damaged further down the line just by being there earlier. So I think longer term, we’re improving outcomes for families by stopping them ever entering the care system.”
“If there was one thing I’d want people to understand from watching the advert, it would be that this is a real issue, that children are affected by abuse and neglect and domestic violence every single day in every part of the country, possibly next door to you, where you live and it’s something that we need to keep working on together as a charity.”
