Mother Talkers

NYU rescinds Ad campaign

by Sue in Queens

Fri Dec 21, 2007 at 05:08:22 PM PDT

You may remember the "Ransom Note" campaign from NYU that Expat Briton blogged here.  It was designed to raise awareness of children's mental health issues and bring parents to action.  This week, the NYU Child Study Center pulled the ads.

The ads upset many in the Mental Health community,

Advocates for children with autism and for other special-needs children said the ads reinforced negative stereotypes.

 It certainly got a huge response very quickly

Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, the Child Study Center’s founder and director, . . . estimated that he had received 3,000 e-mail messages and phone calls. Thirty percent of those praised the initiative, he said, and 70 percent expressed anger and hurt.

And, in the end, the ads achieved their goal - starting a national conversation about Children's Mental Health.

“It’s the first time that the issue of children’s mental health has gotten national attention without being precipitated by a shooting at a high school or college," (Koplewicz) said.

I'm glad the ad campaign was pulled.  Recent moves to increase awareness by very emotional tactics can play both ways - bringing some people out and scaring the heck out of others.  For families whose child is newly diagnosed with autism, seeing it equated with kidnapping can't be a helpful mindset.

Tags: autism, NYU (all tags)

Permalink | 3 comments

  • good news n/t (0 / 0)

    by shenanigans on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 12:00:07 PM PDT

  • Now the work really begins (0 / 0)

    How do we raise awareness in a positive way? How do you get people's attention?

    This is just the beginning.

    by jakyra on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 01:09:16 PM PDT

    • What I'd like to see.. (0 / 0)

      ..would be some of the reputed Asperger's celebrities out there "come out" and be part of an ad campaign. Given acting is a career which a surprisingly large number of Aspergians are drawn to (if you learn to play a part in your day to day socialisation, it's easy to play another role on stage or screen), having an "I have autism" poster campaign of some sort would I expect be pretty effective. It's persuading people to be part of it (and finding out they're Aspergian in the first place) that's the hard part.

      Thanks for diarying, Sue. I had meant to put something up yesterday, but what with Christmas didn't have the opportunity.

      "You're never more alone than when you're alone in a crowd."

      by Expat Briton on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 01:13:03 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

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