A social experiment by an Australian children’s services provider found that over the course of eight hours, only 21 people approached to help a child “lost” in one of Australia’s busiest shopping centres.

The experiment was staged by Key Assets Australia in Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall on March 6 of this year.

Video from the experiment shows two child actors, Samuel and Ava, standing alone in a busy mall and appearing frightened.

Concerned members of the public are shown approaching the children to try to help them find their parents.

The experiment is then revealed and the participants invited to comment on the encounter.

Held in conjunction with National Youth Week from April 8 to 17, the goal of the experiment was to raise awareness about the 43,000 children nationwide in need of foster carers.

“I don’t think any child should be alone so to see a child like that and to relate that back to foster care [affected me],” one woman said.

“I think it’s incredibly important that we find opportunities for these children to have a happy life.”

Key Assets’ Executive Director Rob Ryan said a child lost in a shopping mall was a “perfect metaphor for what is happening to children in need”.

“This number [of children in foster care] has been steadily increasing over the past 10 years, but the number of foster carers is in decline,” he said.

“We hope that this social experiment will help bring attention to the desperate need for more foster carers in Australia and encourage those who have never thought about it, to reach out to us.”