Childcare services at capacity

The Minister for Children Norma Foley visited Krafty Kidz Childcare on Tuesday morning last week, March 31, where plans for their new facility were unveiled.

The purchase of the location at Doon Heights was completed in December, with a builder due to begin in the coming weeks. It’s hoped the work will be complete by September. “If everything goes to plan,” Krafty Kidz CEO Annette Coyle told the Celt.

It will be the childcare provider’s sixth facility. The crèche will provide a baby room, toddler room and a full day care pre-school room, which will accommodate up to forty children aged 0-3 years, with around 15 staff to be employed. The facility is much anticipated by those in the local community as Annette has an “extensive” waiting list of 152 children for the baby and toddler service alone.

“It’s going to be nowhere near meeting the demand that’s there,” she said.

“Demand is really in excess of the capacity that we’re going to have. When the service opens, we’ll go through our waiting list, we have a waiting list policy,” she explained.

Annette receives daily phone calls and emails from parents looking for space for their children.

“Lots of parents are looking for an update to see when they are going to get a place, parents that are going back to work, and at the moment we don’t have any space, we are full.”

Despite this, she says the facility will be “great” for the parents and families in Ballyconnell who do get to avail of it. Krafty Kidz received €750,000 under the Department for Children’s Building Blocks Scheme last May to carry out the build. They currently care for 219 children, with a staff team of eighty and said they are “very proud” of the service.

Meanwhile, service manager at Happy Days Childcare in Belturbet, Joy Johnston, told the Celt she is “normally the first” to know when people are expecting a baby, as parents desperately try to secure a place as early as possible. When a woman who was 14 weeks’ pregnant recently called Joy, she had to reveal the news that their child is number 200+ on the waiting list.

Of the 210 children waiting, they are primarily they are in the 0-2 year age bracket, however the facility also can only cater for children who are aged two and over. They currently have 158 registered children in the community-based facility.

“If we could gain a second premises and staff it, the ideal scenario would be that we open at least a minimum of a 1-2 year old room that would cater for parents going off on maternity leave.

“If we could take them from a year that would supporting parents being able to return to work a lot sooner than being off for two years.

“With the economy the way it is, everybody does need to work,” she stressed.

“Unless we open these baby rooms and staff them, how are people going to do it?”

Female sector

Predominantly a “female” sector, Ms Johnston experiences the impact of having “nowhere that takes babies” within her own workforce.

However opening a baby room also means “you need to have a higher staff per child ratio” to comply with childcare regulations.

“Everything has a knock-on effect,” she said, adding how the system needs to be looked at to “support where support is needed”.

“It’s [the system] never going to be fixed I think, but can it be better? One hundred percent.”

While Happy Days Childcare are looking for a new premises, it’s proving difficult within the current climate. The facility received the Building Blocks grant in 2015 when they decided to build up rather than out. They currently have two full time rooms, and three sessional rooms, which operate at different times within a two-floor building and one Portacabin.

In her position for the past eighteen months, Ms Johnston says it’s “clear that we need more space” however they’re finding it difficult to find “somewhere suitable” within Belturbet.

“We cater for afterschool for the three schools within the locality so it would have to be within a reasonable distance to that,” she said, however homes close to schools are “favourable” for families also. She has been searching for a new place since June of last year to no avail.

How do childcare providers deal with that?

“Exactly,” Joy responds.

“There is also a housing crisis so then are you taking a house from a family that needs it in order to provide that family with childcare.”

It’s something she has contacted local representatives about, however her “main concern” is bringing the current facility “up to scratch”.

“That would involve some form of a maintenance grant,” she said, however this is unavailable. In receipt of CORE funding, Joy describes this as a “significant support” however it “does not cover all operational costs”.

For example, their Portacabin is almost twenty years’ old and “needs replacing”.

“Where does the money come for that?” she questioned, describing how the Building Blocks grant provides funding to expand capacity, but not to upgrade current facilities.

Storm damage

Meanwhile Storm Éowyn ripped through their playground last year, sending their playhouse, slide, and some other equipment hurtling in the wind. They are now faced with a bill of €65,000 to replace equipment, and to make it more accessible and inclusive for all children, as well as future proof it.

“That’s a massive part of the child’s play and if you don’t have a great play area, the kids are at a disadvantage.”

Meanwhile, they also want to provide equipment for children with disabilities.

“You’re trying to create an environment that’s really inclusive, supports children within the service and the future of the service, but where are we funding that from on top of everything else?”

While they were unsuccessful in their grant applications to Cavan County Council last year, they will apply again this year.

“As a manager, I need to keep the lights on, the wages paid, the heating going, the food coming in. As a community service, we rely very heavily on our CORE funding, our NCS and things like that. This all needs to be done as well as bringing the service up to scratch with ongoing regulations and upkeep. I only have X amount of money to do that and that’s certainly not going to cover, while I also have staff asking for pay rises because the cost of living has gone up.”

While more CORE funding is on her wish-list, Joy also suggests more funding could go towards supporting children with additional needs earlier, as they currently do not receive support until they are two years and eight months old; the ECCE age group.

A child in their care who is a wheelchair user joined when they were two, however could not receive support through the AIM model for eight months.

“Funding into any form of additional needs would greatly benefit any service.”

Joy described the situation as a “vicious cycle”.

“No matter how much money you pump into it, I feel like something is always going to fall short.

“We have made massive strides in childcare but we still have a long way to go.”