A report published last week, Developing Diverse, Sustainable Approaches to Childcare: Multi-ethnic Pre-school Lessons from Sweden, looked at the role social enterprise models have played in meeting the specific childcare needs of various immigrant groups in Stockholm and concluded that similar models could help plug childcare gaps in the UK.
The findings were based on a visit to three community pre-schools in Sweden. Two were worker co-operatives, owned and run by staff, which charged parents fees, and the third was a pre-school for refugee children run in association with Sweden's Department of Immigration, which provided services for free.
Methods used to address cultural and religious needs included involving parents. In one co-operative, the children's parents took part in the delivery of after-school and lunchtime activities, including a 'World Buffet' programme, where they acted as international chefs of the month to provide food from their own cultures at lunchtimes. This helped keep the pre-school's costs down and was seen as providing an important social network for parents who were new to the country, while teaching children the value of cultural diversity.
The report's author, Carolyn Pedwell, said, 'The greatest lesson we can take from Sweden is that achieving sustainability and sensitivity to the varying circumstances and needs of different groups are not mutually exclusive - in fact they go hand in hand.'
The report suggested that with adequate Government and public sector support, multi-stakeholder childcare social enterprises could have 'great potential' in helping address existing childcare gaps for families from black, minority ethnic and refugee groups in the UK.
Similar enterprise approaches are currently being piloted in the UK by organisations such as Social Enterprise London, Mutuo and the Daycare Trust.
* A conference organised by Children in Scotland, the umbrella body for children's charities and organisations north of the border, in association with the Ministry of Education of Sweden, will discuss the findings of a research project that has examined the transfer of responsibility for early childhood services in Sweden from the welfare to the education department, and to the same administrative framework as compulsory schooling.
The conference will take place on 19 September in New Lanark, Scotland, and speakers will include Barbara Martin Korpi from the ministry of education in Sweden, and Peter Moss and Pat Petrie from the Institute of Education at the University of London. The cost of attendance is 110 to 170. For more information contact Alison Rowan on 0131 228 8585 or e-mail her at arowan@childreninscotland.co.uk.
