Female Ukrainian refugees are suddenly tasked with shouldering both home and work responsibilities. Policy measures are needed to respond to women’s unique situations during this war.
The federal government introduced the current childcare subsidy and activity test in 2018. An evaluation of the policy has found it met some of its intended objectives but failed at others.
The Mitchell Institute mapped childcare availability across the country and found regions where demand rarely met the supply. They also looked at cost and workforce participation for women.
Plans to prevent transmission in childcare settings are being left to states and territories, and these are at times fragmented. Parents and centres need a coherent and clear set of guidelines.
A new report calls for a federal strategy and package of support for the sector to reduce the risk of transmission among the one million unvaccinated children attending childcare and pre-school.
From nursery closures to families self-isolating, COVID has disrupted children’s access to pre-school care. This impacts their development, and their parents’ ability to work
Early childhood education and care centres, which includes childcare and preschool, are part of our village. They form a support network established to ensure parents’ and children’s lifelong success.
One in five early childhood educators said they planned to leave their job within a year. It is vital we design a system and policies to ensure there are enough to meet the demand.
Whether the policy benefits high-income or low-income families matters, but it also misses the point — early childhood policies need to focus on what benefits children.
The NSW and Victorian preschool funding announcements are likely to increase the growing focus on early childhood education, which is shaping up to be a major issue.
Victorian parents will have a total of 72 days of free absences from childcare, if services agree to waive the gap fee. And childcare services will receive 25% of their revenue from the government.
Choosing child care when returning to paid work can be hard and to the uninitiated the terms can be confusing. One alternative to long day care in a larger centre is known as family day care.
With caregivers’ faces covered, infants and young children will miss out on all the visual cues they’d normally get during stages of rapid developmental growth.
The government’s emergency relief package for childcare centres has kept many from collapsing financially due to COVID-19. The transition to other arrangements must be slow and carefully managed.