Child Care Now

The campaign successfully drew attention to the need to solve the workforce crisis in child care — caused by low wages and poor working conditions — and ensure that all families can access child care when they need it. The campaign was the last major advocacy action on child care prior to the Canadian federal budget in 2024, when over $1 billion of investment was secured in grants and loans for expanding child care availability in Canada.

Child Care Now and their provincial affiliates are trailblazing advocates for accessible, nonprofit, universal child care. In 2023, Child Care Now approached us for help with their “National Day of Action for Early Learning and Child Care” campaign communications. LeBlanc (& co.) Communications supported the national advocacy organization, Child Care Now, with planning and rolling out the campaign. Our support included communications, particularly communications strategy, graphic design and illustration, media relations, and content creation.

After building a strategy for the campaign together, we chose a strategic frame for the campaign that highlighted the hundreds of thousands of Canadian families that couldn't access child care when they needed it. This frame was carefully chosen to move the federal government to act on this issue.

We worked with the Child Care Now team to create and launch an open letter to the federal government that received over 6,000 signatures. The success of this letter and overall campaign was owed to the strong foundation that child care activists have built over decades of tireless work. By leveraging the reach of provincial affiliates and activists across the country, the National Day of Action received over 30 media hits in various media outlets.

We were also thrilled to support Child Care Now on their campaign’s visual identity. We created custom illustrations to create a unique “look and feel” for the campaign. The graphics worked seamlessly alongside Child Care Now’s existing visual brand identity, while bringing a distinct brand to the National Day of Action content.

To help families and activists across the country participate in the campaign, we helped Child Care Now create a toolkit to spark engagement with the National Day of Action. The toolkit featured social media content, the open letter, and printable materials including buttons and a poster.