EDOMONTON FOSTER CARE
LOVESTRONG
The Problem
The City of Edmonton is currently facing a decline in foster care homes as long-term caregivers are starting to transition to new phases in their lives. Unfortunately, there are not enough new applicants to replace them and meet the demand of those families in need.
A collective of foster agencies in Edmonton along with the Government of Alberta came to Ranger to help create awareness and interest in foster care to meet the crisis.
It takes more than love to foster a child. It takes LoveStrong.
Fostering a child takes more than love. It also takes vulnerability, community, acceptance, fearlessness and strength. It takes a certain type of person to bring a child into their home, love them, support them unconditionally and to be strong enough to also let them go when the time comes. LoveStrong is dedicated to inspiring potential caregivers in hopes to remove fear around fostering and connect more in-need children with stability.
With open ears and open hearts.
Their goal ultimately is to increase the number of foster families, but simply blasting “we need more foster families” throughout Alberta was not what we considered effective for this type of nuanced and sensitive ask. In fact, this type of messaging was broadcast in early 2023 with weak results. The committee’s and Ranger’s objectives became to share compelling stories, empower individuals, and ultimately build stronger communities. This strategy led to LoveStrong.
With caregivers feeling underfunded and unappreciated, we set out to create a campaign that put them at the centre of the dialogue and showcased their resilience, strength and love while making sure they felt heard.
We were creating a platform and resource, not just recruitment ads.
Foster Care Everywhere
We coordinated with our media and PR partners to help amplify the stories to Edmontonians so they could see themselves in these outstanding individuals and inspire them to consider becoming a foster caregiver.
On top of traditional advertising we captured interviews and the journeys foster parents went down, which would live on digital channels. All assets drove to a larger website that acted as a resource for individuals and a space to hand off individuals to foster agencies in Edmonton if they wished to take action and get involved.
Billboard
Transit
Radio & Spotify (Edmonton and Area)
Video Advertising (Pre-Roll)
Digital Display Ads
Social Media
Website & Content
Press Release / Media Engagement
Video Pre-Roll
Pre-roll ads were created to showcase people that may go above and beyond in their community and how taking it one step further could foster more in their community.
Website + Resource Hub
A website was created as a ever-changing resource for individuals considering fostering to explore stories of caregivers, get answers to questions and find out how they can get involved.
Social Channels
Social media channels were used as a method to share the stories of our foster caregivers as well as provide educational information and inspirational quotes to inspire potential caregivers.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Youtube were the channels used to broadcast our social messages, with a focus on Facebook which aligned with the audiences most likely to become caregivers.
CAREGIVER STORIES
Long format stories were created to showcase the resilience, strength and love that people who take on the role of caregiver. We wanted to show not just the why but how they were lead to their journey to fostering.
These emotional stories lived on all digital channels, and were also cut into shorter versions for social media. They were then turned into long format blog posts for potential caregivers to read deeper and
Reflection from the team
This work really opened my eyes to the people in your community doing this amazing caregiving where you might not even know they are there.
— Kyle