When You Are Ready Campaign
This is a co-produced nationally coordinated campaign with the aim of encouraging adult victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and exploitation to reach out for support and ensure they feel seen, heard and supported.
The campaign message is simple: If you’ve been abused or exploited as a child, we are here, when you are ready. We understand. We believe. We care.
The three-minute film features the voices of victims and survivors who have experienced child sexual abuse and exploitation – this includes both contact and online offences. The film does not discuss the abuse experienced but details the experience each victim and survivor had in making the decision to disclose their abuse to a loved one, support organisation and/or the police, and the impact it had on their life thereafter. You can view the film via https://www.whenyouareready.co.uk/ which also has links to support organisations.
The intention is that the film and associated campaign assets, resonates with further victims and survivors, highlighting that they are not alone and this is happening to other people, like them, who are living and thriving.
Encouraging victims and survivors to reach out for support if that’s the right thing to do for them - whether it’s telling a friend, or contacting a support organisation. To feel empowered to take a step.
How This Specific Campaign Happened
As part of the work of the national Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Taskforce, which was established by Government in April 2023 to enhance the policing response to child sexual exploitation and abuse, the communications team (comprising of Hydrant, TOEX and VKPP colleagues) set up sessions with the Marie Collins Foundation's Lived-Experience Group late 2023 to collaborate directly with victims and survivors. To ensure that any work developed and delivered put their voices at the heart of this work and the policing response to child abuse and exploitation.
Following these sessions, the requirement was clear - there was a real need for a nationally coordinated campaign, which would seek to encourage further adult victims and survivors to reach out for support (not just from law enforcement) and ensure they feel seen and heard. It was also crucial that any work would be fully informed by those with lived experience from start to finish.
The CSE Taskforce commissioned Stand to deliver on this work and the project team has since been working closely with those with lived experience on every aspect of this campaign, including an extensive research and insights phase and one-to-one interviews, which have created the central hard-hitting campaign film.