Focus on proposed re-opening of childcare facilities ‘CHILDCARE WILL BE DIFFERENT
WITH PREPARATIONS TAKING PLACE ACROSS THE COUNTY FOR THE RETURN TO CHILDCARE ON JUNE 29, SPEAKS TO CHILD-CARE PROVIDERS ABOUT THE NEW WORLD ORDER
THE re-opening of child-care services in just a few weeks will come as a welcome step forward for many parents. However, there are also many concerns about what the future of child-care will look like.
In recent weeks the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DYCA) released guidelines for the re-opening of child-care services - chief among this is the development of ‘ play pods’ based on the Norwegian model of child-care.
As social distancing is not possible with young children, pods would restrict interactions between closed groups of children and adults.
According to the DCYA the purpose of ‘play-pods’ is to limit the number of people a child has contact with, to facilitate tracing, and to support close, positive interactions between children and their adult caregivers.
This system will also reduce the amount of contact adults have with each other.
Where possible, there should be two adults in a ‘play-pod’, to allow breaks without need for floating staff.
The maximum size of a ‘play-pod’ is to be in line with current childcare regulations.
How the pod will function has yet to be fully trashed out and their are mixed views on it according to service providers.
Concerns have raised on how pods will work given that childcar hours vary from child to child and family to family. Some need childcare for three hours, other for half-days, other full-time and other just avail of the two years of free preschool under the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme. This does not run during summer months.
In the original Government reopening roadmap, only children of essential workers were to return to early years centres on June 29th but this has been significantly widened to include vulnerable children, those with disabilities and any whose parents need the service to return to work.
Derek O’Leary of Scamps and Scholars is feeling very positive about the pods and believes they will work.
“Childcare is a hand-on operation so social distancing would not work and I think the Department has acknowledged that.”
He said that children will adapt to the new rules but that the biggest challenge he says will be for the staff and the parents.
The new regulations also mean parents cannot enter the building and the children will be met by staff.
“The biggest challenge is to re-educate the staff to work in isolation and to have less interaction with each other. Children are resourceful. Adults lament change but children will just play with their pod. We [the adults and parents] will reflect on what is different children are in the moment,” said Mr O’Leary.
The re-opening of childcare services on June 29 is also ideal as it gives operators time to adjust. Traditionally the summer is quieter for childcare services particularly as the EEC pre-school year finishes in June and is what brings a large percentage of children to child-care services.
“We operate at a different level at during the summer. ...It will allow us to test the waters. We are planning now to see what problems we envisage but it is not until we open and see the challenges that we will know.”
“There are a lot of unknowns.” He said that it ha been feared that the capacity of child-care centres would have to decrease which would have had a huge financial impact on centres. However, thankfully the capacity is down to the centres themselves and how they operate their pods.
For centres like Scamps and Scholars which provides child-care for more than 230 children in its care and up to 40 staff, it is vital that they re-open not least for the parents that use the service but for the staff and the economy. Derek says there has been a lot of enquiries from parents and naturally concerns have been raised but he believes that the majority of families will return to child-care.
“We are putting protocols in place now. We were waiting until the Government announcement and now we are sending out protocols.”
“It is hard to see how busy we will be it is too early yet. When we open and some children return and settle in more will return. When we are up an running it will give people confidence.”