B&B TO PROMOTE EARLY YEARS PROFESSIONALS

The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) has selected Band & Brown and the Central Office of Information’s (COI) News and PR team to promote the Early Years Professional Status (EYPS).
EYPS is a Status that graduates who work with children aged 0-5 years can attain. The first Early Years Professionals (EYPs) were accredited in February 2007 and currently more than 1900 people have successfully achieved the Status.
Band & Brown will be responsible for creating a national PR campaign to demonstrate the value of EYPS and encourage interest from existing and prospective childcare workers and employers. Those wishing to know more about EYPS will be directed to CWDC’s website www.cwdcouncil.org.uk for further information.
The activity will run in two phases to complement other advertising that will launch later this year:

• Phase 1 (May 2008 – May 2011) will communicate the benefits of EYPS to encourage people to apply, and encourage employers to recruit Early Years Professionals.
• Phase 2 (October 2008 – May 2011) will communicate the calibre and professionalism of EYPS. Parents will be targeted at a later stage in the campaign, from January 2009 onwards, to allow for demand and supply of the Status.

The agency will work in close partnership with COI News and PR, which will use its regional network to work closely with Local Authority (LA) contacts and Training Providers to secure regional media coverage.
The work will support CWDC’s large-scale recruitment campaign based on local recruitment strategies with advertising of EYPS across regional press and radio.
As a secondary objective the brief also requires Band & Brown, with support from COI News and PR, to promote diversity in childcare recruitment, and attract new people into the workforce, in particular 18-40 year old males from middle range socio economic groups and biased towards ethnic minorities.
Claire Hamilton, Communications Officer for Early Years, at CWDC said:
"The government aims to have an Early Years Professional in every daycare setting by 2015. Research shows that the earlier graduates are involved with children the better the developmental outcomes. This PR campaign is a vital component in helping us reach this target.”
Gill Brown, Managing Director, Band & Brown commented:
"Band & Brown is delighted to be working with a profession that has such a major influence on children's development and lifetime opportunities. Our campaign will be citing EYPS as proof of how the sector is transforming.
"We're particularly pleased that CWDC has bought into a range of creative approaches from traditional media relations to live celebrity events."
Helen Desmond of COI News and PR added:
'We are looking forward to working in partnership with Band and Brown and local stakeholders to ensure effective delivery of campaign messages at a local level.
“With a network of eight offices across the UK, COI has unique local intelligence as well as long-standing relationships with regional media and stakeholders."