The two-year Childcare Challenge project, which has received support from the Community Fund, will work with agencies in Cornwall, Greenwich, Middlesbrough and Sefton. It will target families on low incomes outside the areas designated as among the 20 per cent most disadvantaged in England, where most funding is currently directed. Almost two-thirds of children in poverty do not live in these areas.
The Childcare Challenge project will co-ordinate local events for parents, carers and children which will give them opportunities to have a say on how best to provide high quality, affordable childcare in pockets of deprivation. It will also generate two research reports on problems with childcare availability in England to inform Government policy and a range of materials to disseminate the project's findings. A major national conference on 11 November this year will present the findings.
Stephen Burke, director of the Daycare Trust, said, 'The Government's pledge to end child poverty by 2020 is its most important ambition.
Childcare has a key role to play in meeting the child poverty challenge by giving children a good start in life and helping families to work and raise their income.
'The National Childcare Strategy is starting to create much needed improvements in childcare services for children and parents. The lack of affordable childcare in the UK is a big hole in the Government's anti-poverty strategy. This project aims to raise the voices and extend the childcare choices of parents throughout the country.'
While childcare is recognised as a key service for families experiencing disadvantage, a recent survey by the Daycare Trust found a typical place at a day nursery in England costs more than 6,650 a year and there is only one childcare place for every seven children under the age of eight in the UK.
