Unlocking Potential
Rethinking Childcare for Parents and Children
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in partnership with Fabian Women’s Network Monday 28 10.00 – 11.00 Childcare is critical to children’s development, parents’ ability to work and women’s economic equality, yet families across the UK face very different systems of support, costs and funded entitlements. This panel will compare approaches in England, Scotland and Wales, asking how best to deliver funded childcare and to whom, and whether public funding reaches families at the points when the financial pressure is greatest. It will look at the costly period when parents first return to work after having a child, but also at the pressures parents face when children start school: the school day is shorter than the normal working day, school holidays far exceed parents’ annual leave, and many families are left trying to patch together breakfast clubs, after-school care, holiday clubs and informal arrangements simply to make work possible. Parents inevitably make sacrifices when they have children, but an economy which needs parents to remain in and return to work must have a childcare system that makes that realistically possible. This panel will consider whether wraparound and holiday care should be treated as essential infrastructure, including greater use of school buildings outside teaching hours, while also looking at how integrated early-years services such as England’s Best Start Family Hubs, Wales’s Flying Start and Scotland’s whole-family support approach can help vulnerable families, identify SEND or additional needs early, and ensure children receive the support they need to fulfil their potential. Speakers:
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