Peace of Mind Campaign
Encyclopedia
Peace of Mind Campaign: One Neuron at a Time
Peace of Mind is an awareness and funds raising campaign by the children’s charity Kids CompanyKids Company
Kids Company is a charity organisation that works with young ex-offenders and disadvantaged children through inner-city schools in London, a drop-in centre in Camberwell, and the Urban Academy in Southwark...
. 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
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...
, Myspace
Myspace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
and Bebo
Bebo
Bebo is a social networking website launched in July 2005. It is currently owned and operated by Criterion Capital Partners after taking over from AOL in June 2010....
. 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
Anna Freud Centre
The Anna Freud Centre is a child psychoanalysis research, training and treatment centre located in London, United Kingdom. It is one of only a small number of places in the UK where children can receive full psychoanalysis. It is closely associated with University College London and Yale...
, University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
, Great Ormond Street Hospital
Great Ormond Street Hospital
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children is a children's hospital located in London, United Kingdom...
, Institute of Psychiatry
Institute of Psychiatry
The Institute of Psychiatry is a research institution dedicated to discovering what causes mental illness and diseases of the brain. In addition, its aim is to help identify new treatments for them and ways to prevent them in the first place...
, 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.