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By Ellen Ormesher, Senior Reporter

March 2, 2023 | 3 min read

Data from the motherhood charity recently revealed three in four mothers who pay for childcare say it no longer makes financial sense for them to work.

Pregnant The Screwed, a charity working to end injustice against working mothers has partnered with Saatchi & Saatchi to launch an integrated campaign to raise awareness of a crisis in childcare costs.

‘A Cry For Help’ centers on a baby’s cry – a sound that has been proven impossible for human brains to ignore. To develop a cry that would generate the most emotional and physical response, the agency worked with Professor Lauren Stewart, professor of psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The campaign aims to highlight the results of Pregnant Then Screwed’s recent, national report which surveyed more than 24,000 parents and revealed that three in four mothers (76%) who pay for childcare say it no longer makes financial sense for them to work.

The UK's childcare costs are now in the top three most expensive across the developed world (according to data from the OECD) and this is driving up debt for families, with one in three (32%) parents who use formal childcare admitting that they have had to rely on some form of debt to cover their childcare costs.

The work will play out across out-of-home (OOH), including Ocean Outdoor’s full motion digital OOH screen located in Eat Street, Westfield London and across Spotify and social media from Friday 3 March through to Mother’s Day (19 March) across the UK, as part of an urgent demand by Pregnant Then Screwed for a clear investment plan for the childcare sector.

Lauren Fabianski, communications director at the charity says, “Mothers can't pay to go to work, it doesn't make any sense, but after years of underfunding from the government and ever-increasing childcare fees the majority of mothers now say that it doesn’t make financial sense for them to work. Childcare providers are desperately underfunded, with more than half saying they operated at a loss in 2022, and on top of this, we’re seeing early years workers as staff falling below the poverty line due to low rates of pay. The whole sector is on its knees, and it is continuing to collapse around us; meanwhile, more and more mothers fall out of the workplace.

“That’s why we’ve partnered with Saatchi & Saatchi to create our ultimate Cry For Help in an attempt to get the government to take the childcare crisis seriously ahead of the Spring Statement. This is a cry that they cannot ignore.”

Credits

Saatchi & Saatchi

CCO: Franki Goodwin

Creative director: Gemma Phillips

Creatives: Holly Georgious and Lawrence Slater

Executive design director: Nathan Crawford

Designers: Scott Powell and Benny Yang

Managing director: Sarah Jenkins

Managing partner: Alicia Iveson

Account director: Kallie Merentitis

Strategy director: Gail Anderson-Brown

Executive production director: Matthew Hodges

Senior creative producer: Jessica Nelson

Senior integrated producer: Margarida Alfama

PR: Celia Venables, Lucy Burton

Production companies: Sliced Studio, The Factory and BearJam

DOOH: Ocean Outdoor

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