Over a quarter (25%) of employees trying to have a child will experience baby loss or miscarriage, but sadly many will suffer in silence or not speak to their workplace. To support baby loss Wunderman Thompson has teamed up with The Worst Girl Gang Ever to create a new health initiative, Project 65.

Project 65 is the agency’s revised inclusive health offering designed to support everyone at the agency to be their whole self, for the whole of their career at the agency. Led by RISE, Wunderman Thompson’s women’s network, it will offer support to any employee across a number of mental and physical health pillars including fertility, menopause and menstrual health. The project was inspired by a government survey which revealed that 65% of women feel uncomfortable talking about health issues in the workplace, an issue that affects both women and men at all levels of seniority.

“A third of our life is spent at work, yet we don’t switch off life when we come to work, it happens around us.” says Paula Joannou, Chief People Officer at Wunderman Thompson UK.

The partnership with The Worst Girl Gang Ever will make up part of the project that offers a new support package to any employee affected by baby loss and aims to break down stigmas in the workplace around miscarriage.

The Worst Girl Gang Ever is a platform encompassing manager training and taboo-busting webinars launched by Bex Gunn and Laura Buckingham in 2020. The pair also have an award-winning platform series and community platform created following their own personal experiences with baby loss. The Worst Girl Gang Ever was designed to ensure that no other parent need navigate the experience alone.

As part of the initiative, the agency will offer a three-month subscription to The Worst Girl Gang Ever’s membership platform, the Warriorship, a community that offers members access to a wide range of emotional tools, live events, creative therapies, recovery courses and actionable advice. Support on the platform covers every stage from early grief to trying to conceive after loss, pregnancy after loss, parenting after loss, and the decision to end the fertility journey.

“We’re thrilled to be joining forces with The Worst Girl Gang Ever to offer a rounded support package to those facing baby loss. We can’t fix the problem, but we hope to make an awful life experience a little bit more bearable, giving our employees the peace of mind that Wunderman Thompson is there to help them through it.” adds Joannou.

The partnership will become part of Wunderman Thompson’s evolved Life Policies which offer any employee, regardless of length of service, a guaranteed two weeks of paid time off to recover following a miscarriage. This applies to both the childbearing parent, their partner, or those who have conceived through a surrogate.

The new partnership will add to Wunderman Thompson’s existing initiatives including ‘Four Walls’. Founded by RISE, Four Walls is Wunderman Thompson’s women’s network which provides employees with a safe space to discuss often sensitive topics.

The agency will also be expanding the support available through its mentorship platform, Magpie, to give people access to peer-to-peer support as they return to work following a miscarriage.