HOW DID YOU COME TO SET UP THE GROUP?
We were originally campaigning for the petition to extend paid maternity leave to 12 months, which led to a debate by MPs in the House of Commons.
As time progressed this expanded to include mental health and health visitor services being appropriately reinstated, as at present it is a postcode lottery whether families are receiving the support they need. We’re incredibly passionate about the maternity petition but, at this stage, although the response was disappointing, and it’s pretty much the end of the road as far as the petitions process goes, it doesn’t mean we’re giving up on the issues behind it.
There are six of us in Parenthood Matters and we’ve set this up because we’ve caught the bug for campaigning. Some of us are just returning to work after having children and we’re seeing issues, such as childcare, from a new perspective. We hope to work together as a collective (parents, organisations and the childcare industry) to improve the childcare system in the UK.
We’re very much at the research stage. It will be quite a task – there are so many different campaigns. We’ve been in touch with the New Economics Foundation, Pregnant Then Screwed, Parent-Infant Foundation, and others, discovering what is already going on and seeing how we can fit from our perspective.
WHAT’S THE THINKING BEHIND YOUR LATEST CAMPAIGN ON CHILDCARE FUNDING?
For most families, support doesn’t kick in until children are three. There is a gap from when a parent chooses to return to work and when their child is three (for most families). They are having to make decisions based on astronomical costs of childcare. We want to bring in a solution to put in support right from parents returning to work.
It’s been widely reported how much childcare providers are struggling, and change is needed to support them.
Ideally, we believe in universal childcare. But with this Government, at this time, we realise that’s too big an ask.
Parents struggling to afford childcare is not new. Childcare settings struggling with the funded childcare system is not new. What is new is the additional pressures the Covid-19 pandemic has placed on parents and childcare settings. Now is the time for change. Now is the time to revamp the system, for the good of parents and childcare settings.
HOW WOULD IT WORK?
A sliding scale of funding based on household income, irrespective of a child’s age. Those on lower incomes will be eligible for more funded hours. Those on higher incomes will be eligible for fewer hours.
A family with a household income of £90,000 are still getting 30 hours’ childcare, but a family with a tenth of that and a one-year-old are not eligible for it.
Nurseries are shouldering the costs of 30 hours’ childcare because the funding doesn’t cover the full cost of the place, or parents of younger children are having to pay more.
We want to move some of the 30-hour funding to benefit parents of younger children. So, that could mean changing the criteria so higher-income families might be eligible for ten hours a week, rather than 30. However, because the support would be spread over the years, rather than just from the age of three, even higher-income families would be unlikely to lose out.
To avoid higher-income families being exploited, we would suggest that there was a reasonable cap placed on the price per hour of childcare, set at a level that would allow childcare settings to run at a profit. This is an important point, any solution put in place needs to work for families and childcare providers or in a few years’ time we would once again find ourselves in a situation where nurseries are struggling to stay open, or families are struggling with the cost.
So that the support put in place works for all, we recognise that extensive consultation would need to take place with the early years sector to understand the level of funding they would need. Should our proposal be implemented, it would mean that adequate support is there as soon as a woman is ready to return to the workplace, rather than when her child turns three.
Single-income families in particular would benefit, both from the funded hours being assessed according to their income, but also from the price per hour cap on childcare.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON YOUNG FAMILIES?
This year has been incredibly tough for young families. Mothers labouring without their partners, health visitor clinics closed, mental health support lacking, parents struggling to provide childcare. All these topics have come up time and time again in our group of 3,500 people on Facebook.
Childcare has been a hot topic. A lot of people that were planning on using informal childcare at the end of maternity leave were then not allowed to during lockdown, and many are facing that again now. There’s uncertainty there. I’m using informal childcare through grandparents. I was looking for a nursery or childminder in August, but they could only offer me certain days, or full-time hours. I’m going back to work part-time, on set days, and can’t afford a full-time place. At that point, Maisie, my daughter, was nine months old, and a lot of settings seemed to be prioritising older children or full-time places.
One of the things we found when nurseries reopened was that they weren’t considering taking new children. It caused a lot of parents on maternity leave to opt to take the unpaid proportion of maternity leave, and that impacted on their ability to return to work because they had plundered their savings and couldn’t pay for nursery deposits.
WHAT OTHER ISSUES ARE YOU INTERESTED IN?
Health visiting services have also been impacted by the pandemic. We’re hearing that weighing clinics are not operating. Normally you get to go to a drop-in. I’m weighing Maisie at home on my scales because drop-in clinics are closed, to make sure are far as I can that she is developing ok.
A lot of parents are not getting the right help and many need much more help than I do. One mum’s baby had a heart condition that was completely missed because health visitors are not doing assessments. And she was a mum that had been hammering doors down, not all mums can do that. Babies are not even being registered because birth registration services are not working. It’s a postcode lottery.
WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE?
Ultimately, we’re not experts, we’re just mums that have noticed a problem.
We want to put this conversation in front of people that do have that knowledge.
We want to trigger that conversation with the childcare sector, parents and politicians to develop an idea that works for everyone, because at the moment, childcare funding doesn’t really work for anyone.
More information
https://parenthoodmatters.co.uk
or email parenthoodmatters@gmail.com
