Nursery World - Rural areas face pressure for more childcare training

Access to childcare training will become an increasingly crucial problem for rural areas if the forthcoming changes in regulation bring more stringent qualification requirements, Scotland's leading children's agency has warned. Julia Nelson, Children in Scotland's development officer for rural childcare, told a Glasgow seminar on the future for rural childcare services last week that training was a key issue which would need to be addressed. 'We did a survey of training and delivery methods last year, and that seemed to be saying that the training providers would provide peripatetic training, but I'm not sure that's everybody's experience,' she told Nursery World Scotland. 'In 2002 the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care comes in, and they might well demand that everybody has a certain level or can prove they're working towards it, so it's going to be important that everybody should have access.'

Julia Nelson, Children in Scotland's development officer for rural childcare, told a Glasgow seminar on the future for rural childcare services last week that training was a key issue which would need to be addressed. 'We did a survey of training and delivery methods last year, and that seemed to be saying that the training providers would provide peripatetic training, but I'm not sure that's everybody's experience,' she told Nursery World Scotland. 'In 2002 the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care comes in, and they might well demand that everybody has a certain level or can prove they're working towards it, so it's going to be important that everybody should have access.'

She added that some childcarers found the written requirements of SVQ qualifications daunting. 'In rural areas, where it's not very profitable to be a childcarer, doing a big piece of work is very difficult and quite off-putting,' she said.

Other issues Ms Nelson highlighted were provision for older children, especially the ten to 14 age group; unmet need, for example, children with special needs who either have to travel a long way to reach a service, or face problems because the staff at the local service are not confident about taking them on; long-term viability; and premises.

'It's quite difficult to find premises in rural areas anyway, and there appears to be some resistance from schools, which are often the only suitable location,' she said.

Ms Nelson also pointed out a number of challenges facing childcare provision in rural areas, including making links between initiatives, for example, Social Inclusion Partnerships, new community schools, Sure Start, and the incoming Children's Change Fund.

She said it was also important to think about who would start and manage services in rural areas, given that childcare there had traditionally been organised to a large extent by voluntary committees. She said that such groups might be more reluctant to take on the responsibility or need more support with the increasing demand for full-time childcare.