Families face new hurdle as battling childcare centres prioritise essential workers

Parents may see kids bumped off hard fought-for centre placements while supplied nappies and prepared meals are on the way out – the childcare industry’s battle with COVID-19 restrictions is about to hit even harder.

CHILDCARE centres are cutting back on nappies, meals and introducing priority care systems as they fight to provide consistent care for children on limited funding.

The Federal Government’s ‘free daycare’ scheme, which has seen centres absorb the fees usually paid by parents, has meant centres must run on 50 per cent or less of their usual revenue.

Avenues Early Learning Centre chief of operations Shan Kuo said she had heard of centres needing to stop supplying nappies and meals in a bid to keep their doors open to families.

Shan Kuo, Avenues Early Learning Centre.

She said some centres, including Avenues which spans Brisbane and Logan, had also investigated a priority system to assess which families most needed care as centres could no longer afford to employ their usual number of staff.

“For us, it’s also really tough working with our educators ... to have to personally tell them and say we have to cut back our hours and income ... that’s one of the hardest things to do.

“We’ve assured our staff that once we get to the end of this COVID-19 pandemic (that we want them to continue work).”

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However she said not all centres were able to provide that level of surety, with some introducing redundancies and other measures.

“People are taking different methods in terms of managing staffing costs.”

She said Montessori centres – of which Avenues has two – were especially hard hit because a high number of staff were on visas due to the difficulty in recruiting qualified educators in Australia.

The situation meant those staff were not covered by the JobKeeper payments.

Families with front-line and essential workers are classed as first priority for childcare places, but Ms Kuo said other factors were also considered. This included an individual child’s need for continuity of care and the individual needs of families where parents were working from home.

Childcare centres are fighting to provide continuity of care to children despite significant funding cuts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We know our families well,” she said.

Alexandra Hills I AM Montessori childcare centre managing director Rebecca Grugan said her centres had also implemented a priority system.

“We called each family individually to get their situations first and then we made decisions from there of who we could take and who we couldn’t, based on the funding now being received and staffing availability,” Ms Grugan said.

Ms Kuo said that while the measures may need to come into force, the centre’s priority was to provide the same quality of service to families.

“I feel passionate to keep what we do ... for us it’s only right at this time to provide the same service.

“Children require routine and a sense of order and when you take that out of their lives, not only do they feel the pressure and stress, but so do their parents.”

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