Cot death charity unveils social network for teen parents
UK charity FSID build social networking site to support teen mums and dads
The UK cot death charity,
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) has launched a social networking site for teenage parents.
Bubbalicious aims to provide a supportive and non-judgemental environment for teen parents to give and receive peer support, as well as expert advice. The social network has a forum, full profiles and a tiered award system where users are
rewarded with the status of ‘
Big Sister’ or ‘
Top Dad’ for interacting with the site and other users. This program acts as a buddy system where more junior members of the site can look to them for support and advice.
Supporting the need for such a online community, figures released by the Office of National Statistics in August 2009 showed that young mothers under 20 years old were four times more likely to lose a baby to cot death than older mothers.
FSID’s director Joyce Epstein reinforces this, commenting, “Sadly, the latest research shows that teenage mums have the highest rate of cot death, but we think that many are missing out on safe sleep advice. We developed Bubbalicious after consulting with young parents across the country, and we really hope that the support available on the site will help improve the life changes of the UK’s most vulnerable babies.”
Bubbalicious users are also encouraged to
get involved with the site, by showcasing their writing, video or photographic talent. Bubbalicious are openly looking for guest bloggers and young members with creative talent and have hinted that they may support this talent in the media. The launch of Bubbalicious is supported by sponsor Mothercare. The company is donating a cot and mattress, a baby sleep bag and a dummy every month for a year to lucky Bubbalicious users.
Bubbalicious was designed and built by London
marketing agency Neoco.
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