Great article from the AGE about FDC trends below ---- If you havent already please share your ideas and experiences with Child Care and Early Childhood Learning on the Productivity Commission website. Its a great opportunity to help shape the future of child care. pc.gov.au/projects/inquiry/childcare/comment Family day care increasingly stretches into night (From THE AGE): ---------------- Five-year-old Liam Bray is dropped off after dinner in his Sesame Street pyjamas, almost ready for bed. In Kim Seniors Hampton Park home, a home Liam has come to know as well as his own, he brushes his teeth, solves a wooden farm puzzle and is read Aladdin, his favourite story book. Crawling under a sheet he is now ready for quiet time, when he will usually drift off to sleep. This nightly routine happens often here, in his carers home. It is in Ms Seniors loungeroom, on a trundle bed, that Bray sleeps about 13 nights a month when his father, a station master for Metro, is rostered on the late shift. He is not alone. According to family day carers (qualified home educators who look after children in their own homes) requests for care outside traditional office hours, and often overnight, are on the rise. New government figures show the number of children using family daycare jumped 15 per cent in the year to March 2013, compared to an increase of 3.8 per cent in the number attending long-daycare centres in the same period. More than 135,770 Australian children were being cared for by family day carers by March. Acknowledging the nations childcare system as one that caters to the working week of last century, Prime Minister Tony Abbott in November announced a Productivity Commission inquiry to examine flexible childcare. As the inquiry now prepares to hold public hearings, it will be looking closely at family daycare, with educators often willing to work irregular hours compared to long-daycare centres, which usually operate from 7am to 6pm...
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 09:35:20 +0000