Family Day Care to close for dozens of families

The Surf Coast Shire Council has announced it will end its childcare service by the start of next year.

STAFF shortages and declining participation were the key drivers behind Surf Coast Shire Council’s move to wind down its Family Day Care service.

The shire announced last week that it would end the childcare service by the start of next year, and has said it will help transition its 65 families and six educators to private services during 2023.

Its other early years services, including kindergarten and occasional care, are unaffected by the change.

The shire’s family day care service was for children aged up to 12 years old that allowed them to spend time in another family home in a small group environment.

A 2016 review of the service found the shire needed 15 early years educators for it to work effectively.

Its staff had dropped from 16 in 2019 down to six in the most recent review early last year.

In the same period, the number of families accessing care almost halved, from 120 to 65.

Shire community life general manager Gail Gatt said the trends meant the service had become too expensive for both participating families and the shire’s budget.

“The decline in educators has meant our administration fee (per child per hour) has had to increase to help cover the cost of managing the service.

“By transitioning to a private provider, with a high number of educators, families will pay a lower administration fee to the new private provider, which results in less cost to families and ratepayers.”

Mayor Liz Pattison said the shire’s focus would be to ensure a smooth transition for participants to alternate services.

“In previous years we haven’t always had private providers to run Family Day Care services across our shire.

This has now changed and therefore there should be little change to the services that families can receive as they transition over to new providers.”

“As a mum of four young children I know how important it is to families to have solid day care arrangements in place, so our priority here will be ensuring that the shift is as seamless as possible for everyone.”