There was a time when young people would hit the streets with placards whenever they felt aggrieved about the state of the world around them. These days protests are considerably quieter, with online lobby groups taking the place of direct action.

It was the dreadful story of Peter Connelly – or Baby P as he was identified in court at the time – that caused Teresa Robinson to take to the internet and demand justice in that most 21st Century of ways – by forming a Facebook group.

Together with friends from across the country on the social networking website, the 31-year-old from Hotwells became a founding member of the group, which now, just one year on, has a staggering 900,000 members.

Suddenly Teresa, an Open University literature student, found herself at the forefront of a powerful lobby organisation.

"When we realised just how much response there was to the issue, we decided to develop the Facebook group into a full charity, in order to campaign for change to try to prevent a similar case ever happening again.

"So Action Against Abuse was born," Teresa explains, as she sits down in her Hotwells living room, beside friend and fellow campaigner Kelly Owen, who has also been swept along by the impetus of the group.

"None of us has any experience in running a campaigning charity," Teresa admits. "But we're putting a lot of work into making sure it works, because we really do care passionately about getting something done to improve the lives of children in this country.

"I remember the day last year when I started reading a newspaper article about Baby P and the way he was tortured and neglected before his death."

The 17-month-old baby died in London after suffering more than 50 injuries over an eight-month period at the hand of his mother's boyfriend and his brother. During his short life, Peter was repeatedly seen by social services.

"I've read harrowing pieces in newspapers in the past, but somehow I engaged with this case," Teresa says. "It was more emotive, firstly because he was being called Baby P rather than Child A or Child B, which is what usually happens in such cases.

"Then when I actually started reading the detail that was coming out in court of the sort of abuse he suffered, I was horrified. I decided that I should try to do something to campaign for improvements in the system, to try to stop this ever happening, and Facebook was the only way we could think of getting together a lot of people behind an issue."

Ever since, Teresa and Kelly have been reading up on the intricacies of an entire social services network that they previously knew very little about.

"We're trying to understand ways in which the system can be improved. You actually don't have to be an expert to see some obvious ways," Kelly says. "For example, social workers spend 80 per cent of their time with their heads buried in paper work. If they employed administrators to take some of that simple typing-up off their hands, surely they could spend more time with 'at risk' children?

"One to four children die every 10 days in this country as a result of neglect or maltreatment, according to NSPCC figures, and that shouldn't be allowed in this day and age. If it takes more social workers to bring that number down, then we should be paying for more social workers."

The girls plan to mobilise their hundreds of thousands of Facebook comrades by encouraging them to all send letters to their local MPs.

"We're getting together a standard letter that group members can simply copy and paste into an email to send to their representative in Parliament," Teresa says. "If we manage to inundate all our MPs at the same time, surely they have to take our appeal for change seriously.

"We also have a 2,000 signature petition to try to increase the maximum sentence for causing death to a child through neglect or cruelty from the current 14 years to life imprisonment – and we think that when it comes to causing or allowing the death of a child, life should mean life."

● To join the Facebook campaign, click here.

● For advice on actual child abuse, call the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000.