Nursery World - Nursery Management: Working Poverty: Parents

We know that 70 per cent of all poor children are in working families. So how easy is it for these families to access childcare? Charlotte Goddard investigates

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From families who can’t afford shoes to suicide attempts after job losses, childcare providers are frontline witnesses to the impact of poverty. ‘I have had mums saying they are so poor that they are looking for money on the floor,’ says Nikki Finnis-Parker, co-director of Avenue Nursery and Forest School in Herne Bay, Kent. ‘It is something we are noticing more every year.’

It is not just nurseries in traditionally disadvantaged areas that are seeing the impact. ‘In the last eight years the impact of poverty is everywhere; it’s wider across the city where before it may have been in clear pockets,’ says Sharon Hogan, acting executive head teacher at three nursery schools in Bradford.

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