Childcare is many families’ biggest monthly expense. For typical parents of a child under two, full-time childcare costs nearly £1,000 per month – more than the average mortgage. But work is changing. The 9am-5pm working day is giving way to flexitime and remote working, for which traditional full-day or school-hours childcare models aren’t a good fit.
Moves to explore the future shape of childcare are being jointly tackled by thinktank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and the Family and Childcare Trust (FCT). The idea is the feasibility of co-operative childcare – not-for-profit childcare designed and co-delivered for parents by parents.
Parent-led nurseries are often established by a group of parents who plan how the service is shaped, sit on the management board and recruit paid early years professionals. Parents will often get involved in tasks such as delivering certain hours of childcare or administrative duties in return for reduced childcare fees. This model is growing in popularity in New Zealand, Sweden and Canada, but in the UK there are only a handful of such nurseries.
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