We want to say a big thank you to all who got involved in raising awareness about the ‘Is This OK?’ service during the lead up to National Exploitation Day on the 18th March!
Is This OK? offers free and confidential chat support to young people aged 13–18 who are experiencing or are concerned about exploitation.
Our National Exploitation Day campaign aimed to raise awareness about the service across the UK, and how it can help victims of exploitation. Below we reveal the impact everyone’s hard work had, and give you a summary of what we and our supporters got up to during the campaign!
Thanks to everyone’s hard work raising awareness for ‘Is This OK?’, on and around National Exploitation Day, an incredible 1,508 young people accessed the Is This OK? chatbot in March. This was a 257% increase from the number of people who accessed it in February. It is so encouraging to see that so many more young people now know about the service, and the support that is out there for them. So, how did we do it?
Firstly, our fantastic partners at The Lion Gym, Bradford, dedicatedly promoted Is This OK? during the lead up to National Exploitation Day. The gym put up posters inside the gym, and shared our posts on their Instagram and Facebook accounts throughout February and March. The gym also distributed Is This OK?’s business cards at their Amateur Boxing Show, accompanied by shout outs to the service by the MC before individual bouts. This event provided the service with fantastic exposure to more than 400 attendees. Lion Gym has gone above and beyond letting their clients around Bradford know that our service is here for support!
Secondly, the TikTok, Youtube and Instagram star, Underrated Hijabi shared and chatted about Is This OK?’s with her nearly 3 million followers on TikTok and Youtube! Thank you Underrated Hijabi for raising awareness about the vital service among your followers in a really engaging way, in fantastic videos like the one below:
@underratedhijabi Please check out isthisok.org online this service is a UK service #nationalchildexploitationday #stopchildexploitation
Thirdly, Steyning Town FC provides great awareness for Missing People by promoting appeals of women and girls who have gone missing in the areas of their away fixtures. Around National Exploitation Day, the club expanded its support to promote the Is This OK? service. They shared the services’ details on their club Instagram, Facebook and Twitter – thank you Steyning Town FC for letting your young supporters know that there is a support service here for them!
Fourthly, Reason Digital, our digital partners on the Is This OK? project, shared the powerful video below about Is This OK? with their followers on National Exploitation Day. The video shows the integral part they played in the services’ creation, and how by helping to create the chat bot technology, Reason Digital were vital in creating a space where voices no longer felt they had to remain silent.
*Trigger Warning*: Content references cases of sexual abuse and rape.
Reason Digital also put into words a forceful storytelling piece, detailing young people’s experiences of being exploited and abused. Thank you Reason Digital for really highlighting just how needed a free and confidential chatbot was to support these individuals.
Read the storytelling pieceFinally, Missing People’s Policy and Research teams released their study on exploited children going missing from care, on National Exploitation Day, which created fantastic media attention for Is This OK?. The study revealed that children in care who are victims of exploitation are going missing at an alarmingly high rate. The study was published in national news, in newspapers including The Independent and the Evening Standard, with reference to the important work of Is This OK?. This media attention was a fantastic way to mark National Exploitation Day and raise key awareness across the country!
For more information on the alarming study, find out more below:
Read more about the studyTo sum up, we wanted to say a big thank you to everyone involved in this campaign! And also a big thank you to all who shared our posts about the service! You have helped us reach many more young people, some of whom might be struggling and looking for vital support.
To learn more about the free and confidential exploitation support service, visit the Is This OK? webpage.
Is This OK?We have launched a regular email so that you can be aware of new missing person appeals and share them far and wide! We are also calling on all Heroes to be the eyes and ears for Missing People on the ground. Your sighting of a missing person could make a difference in a crucial time.
