NCA Partners with Balenciaga and the Kering Foundation to advance our mission to protect children

National Children’s Alliance (NCA), America’s largest network of care centers for children recovering from abuse, is pleased to announce a partnership with couture house Balenciaga and the Kering Foundation. The three-year agreement will support our newly launched Mental Health Institute, which is dedicated to helping children with mental health heal from trauma and provide education and advocacy around child protection and other critical services.

Child abuse is unfortunately extremely common worldwide, with 1-in-7 children abused in the U.S., and the numbers are even more disturbing when talking about sexual abuse. And, the numbers are not getting any better. It is also a subject that is considered taboo, which reinforces children’s fear to talk about what happened.

NCA leaders met with senior executives from Balenciaga to express concern with an ad campaign that included representations of children that many people found disturbing and concerning, as well as to discuss how such representations of children could be avoided in the future. Similar to what they stated publicly, during these meetings Balenciaga took full responsibility for the content, confirmed it was not intentional, and expressed an openness to learn from this experience. This led to additional discussions between December and January which yielded this three-year partnership between NCA, Balenciaga, and the Kering Foundation.

In addition to NCA educating employees on child protection issues, Balenciaga and the Kering Foundation partnership will support the provision of training to nearly 2,000 professionals working through Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) to deliver evidence-based assessment, treatment, family engagement, and mental health program development to an estimated 55,000 children and family members over the life of the partnership.

“There is a strong correlation between childhood trauma and negative health effects – from poor performance in school to increased risk of suicide to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease and cancer,” said NCA CEO Teresa Huizar. “This cycle can be interrupted and improved dramatically for children who receive evidence-based, trauma-focused mental health treatment. For them, it can mean the difference between life and death, which is why Balenciaga and the Kering Foundation’s support for this program is so urgently needed.

“We have been impressed with the genuine commitment from both organizations to take action to protect children from trauma so they can live productive and fulfilling lives.”