As she moves on to the charitable sector, leading private nursery provider Susan Hay looks at 16 years of progress in UK childcare and at what urgently remains to be done At the very beginning of my career in childcare provision, I was asked by a visitor to one of my nurseries if I was putting my energy into the right families. Then, I believed I was, and my role involved pioneering high-quality provision for working parents. Now, 16 years later, I am moving on to focus on the needs of families who do not have the advantage of a supportive employer.
That visitor was attending the opening of City Child Nursery in London, one of the very first workplace nurseries, and the first to be brought about through planning measures imposed on the developer of a large office building.
I was the chair of the voluntary management committee that established and ran the nursery, and was responsible for negotiating the arrangements under which employees of the tenant firm were to occupy places.
The late 1980s were exciting times. People were talking about the demographic time-bomb of women returning to the workplace, and of London becoming more like Paris - where children enjoy the city.
I saw the compromised premises that nurseries often found themselves in, and built my concept of childcare on the largely unrecognised value attached to providing high-quality environments for childhood. It was this underlying principle that became the driver for involving employers in childcare: how could parents afford high-quality childcare in high-quality environments without more help than the Government was likely to provide?
Employers had most to gain, and seemed to be the obvious stakeholder to take their place at the table of future childcare supply.
Private concerns
But there were choppy waters to navigate.
I remember my first meeting with the Government minister responsible for childcare, then at the Home Office, and convened to discuss supply-side incentives. A representative of the voluntary sector refused to allow the meeting to begin until I left the room. Her objection was that I was from the private sector. Interestingly, I had lunch with the very same person just recently, who is now a consultant.
A lot has changed in 16 years.
There are similar stories from the education sector, which was reluctant to acknowledge the role that the embryonic private sector might play in early years education, and dismissive of what nursery nurses could add to the teacher's traditional role. Now, they work side by side in children's centres.
Employers who 'didn't get it' were possibly the most difficult to engage with. They considered that if they, personally, had 'had it all' without employer support, so could everyone else. In one case, I received a letter from the senior partner in a large legal practice in the City who accused me of being 'subversive', because 'he, for one, was not prepared to tolerate young children in his railway carriage during his commute'.
In the face of this tide of resistance, I gathered research evidence and good practice examples from around the world to strengthen the case for employer sponsored childcare and a legitimate place for the private sector.
Sweden's community regeneration approach to the inclusion of childcare, Reggio Emilia schools' understanding of children's entitlements to great learning environments, and the United States' acceptance of the employer's role in enabling more parents to access good childcare, and playing their part in the provision of community childcare places - seeing all these doubled my resolve.
I have seen childcare move from the Home Office, through the Department of Health and the continually changing face of what is now the Department for Education and Skills, to the Treasury becoming a key agency, and I have been consulted by them all.
I still dream that one day, childcare supply will be seen as the business of the Department for Communities and Local Government. If only, every time we think about local people, childcare was considered through the wider lens of what that community needs and wants, we would be less distracted by sector in fighting. The appropriate partners would emerge naturally at the right time, rather than the retrofitting of families to provision.
Public recognition
One of the tipping points of my career was when Gillian Pugh, then head of the Early Childhood Unit at the National Children's Bureau, invited me to be a founder of the Early Childhood Education Forum. This was public recognition for the private sector, and it led to many other invitations, including being on the advisory group for the EPPE project, and being a member of the first Investors in Children Panel. I wrote a book, Essential Nursery Management (about to be updated for Routledge/Nursery World) for those setting up a nursery business, and I joined the trustees of the Daycare Trust and Early Education.
I have always spoken out for childcentred and family-led provision, despite the tag of operating-for-profit.
Without profit, we have no energy to develop and improve our service.
Without profit, we risk the very stability of the provision for children and families.
Another critical moment for me was when the US-based Bright Horizons Family Solutions acquired my company Nurseryworks in 2000. This offered new inspiration, deeper experience, a more stable financial footing, and unparalleled career options for nursery staff, at a time when I did not want to be consumed by competition in the UK. It allowed me to focus on our values, our commitment to quality and making a difference in the communities where we work.
The context was changing from one where childcare was a women's problem to solve, to a service for families as a whole. This needed careful, purposeful attention.
Much of my career has been helping employers to appreciate the value of making childcare provision for staff - the culture change that it can help bring about as companies compete to become employers of choice, and to take their place as corporate citizens in the communities in which they locate. I have tried to persuade organisations to open their nursery doors to those around them, rather than just providing workplace facilities. After all, corporate health relies entirely on community health.
Next steps
Moving on from my role as the European Director of Bright Horizons, I am now leading Bright Horizons' charitable arm, the Foundation for Children in Europe. The charity makes grants to Bright Horizons staff to support their own community volunteering efforts, and funds Bright Spaces, places for play within hostels, refuges and centres where families in crisis find themselves.
Coupled with my chairmanship of the charity Working Families, my focus is now moving on to those I feel need my energy more.
The stones in my shoe as I walk on are still many: childcare providers should not be considered as contractors or vendors, but as partners in the provision of something which is essentially creative; employers would be more warmly welcomed in their role, and local authorities would be wiser as the new 'market-makers' if they adopted this stance.
We must resist the dead hand of standards and legislation, which, if they are taken much further, will imply that children and families are all the same, and will squash innovation and enterprise. Both of these are essential for truthful and flexible services that adapt to the changing needs of families and the messiness of real family life.
Susan Hay: Career
* 1976 associate partner of Rock Townsend, architects
* 1981 - assistant director of practice for Royal Institute of British Architects
* 1986 set up City Child, the first nursery in the City of London
* 1987 consulting practice Susan Hay Associates, advising on nurseries for working parents
* 1990 set up Nurseryworks and developed a group of ten nurseries in London, with employer sponsorship at the core
* 2000 sold to US group Bright Horizons Family Solutions and became MD and then chairman/executive director
* June 2006 leading Bright Horizons Foundation for Children
OTHER POSITIONS
* Chair of Working Families
* Vice-chair of Daycare Trust
* Chair of governors at Robert Blair School, now developing a children's centre
* Co-founded Adam's Hats charity, following the loss of her 12-year-old son to a rare form of cancer
