Words fail minders at AGM

Childminders in England have voted to change their name. But they do not know what they want to change it to.

The ballot, which was carried with a postal vote in favour of a name change, followed a motion tabled at the National Childminding Association's (NCMA) annual conference in Torquay on 15 and 16 November. It said, 'It is proposed that this AGM instructs the National Executive Committee to lobby government to change the word "childminder" in legislation to a word or words that more accurately reflect the professional service that we provide.'

However, the delegates voted down replacement names such as 'professional childcare practitioner' and 'approved home childcarer'. An emergency resolution followed that saw the delegates agree to further consultation over the coming year through the NCMA's in-house magazine Who Minds? and for the name change to be debated again at next year's AGM in Scarborough.

Gill Haynes, NCMA chief executive, said, 'The motion was put before the NEC because of frustrations from our members about the very mixed reporting of childminding in the media; only in a very few places is it reported accurately.

From common experience, any form of generic childcare that people want to slag off gets called "childminding", and this works against us and the parents using our services. This is what the NEC motion was reflecting.'

Mrs Haynes said the change of name was 'not going to happen overnight' and that it might take two to four years of lobbying the Government before it became a reality. She added, 'It could happen when the Government takes its next look at the national standards for under-eights daycare or makes further changes to the Green Paper on child protection.'

Mrs Haynes said the forthcoming debate would also help to 'raise the profile of our work and give us the opportunity to educate the media and society at large about what childminders do and the quality of their care'.

At the conference, NCMA members also voted overwhelmingly to ask the NEC to lobby for change in the Ofsted grading system for the childminders' inspection reports.

Delegates agreed almost unanimously that if Ofsted was to continue graded inspections to only three levels, then the current wording of "good", "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory" was unacceptable to childminders. Tracy Burnett from the South Tyneside Childminding Group, who proposed the resolution, said the gradings were 'not positive descriptions for a quality childminding practice.'

The feelings of the delegates were summed up by Susanna Dawson, a childminder from the north-east of England, who said, 'If Ofsted wants to describe the top quality of care, then they should be encouraged to think of better wording. A starting point for the top grade could be "superb" or "excellent" - "brilliant" would be even better.'

Mrs Haynes said, 'It is the commonsense view of childminders that if they are registered and have to meet minimum standards, then how can they be deemed to be unsatisfactory?

'This is a very crude grading system. Why should any childcarers be proud to receive a "satisfactory" rating? It's an issue of self-esteem. This is not going to bring people into the profession who, when doing a good job, are told that they are "satisfactory".'