This paper outlines how the public began to take collective responsibility to end child cruelty and how an idea brought the hidden subject of child cruelty into the public domain. The campaign took the public on a journey from denial and impotence to one of awareness, knowledge and empowerment. This is a story of how the NSPCC set the mission to end child cruelty. The 'full stop' campaign first impacted the public's awareness in 1999, and from then on has worked to get the public to accept that ending child cruelty is a responsibility we all have to share. NSPCC was also able to double its income and continue to galvanise voluntary support