Minister for Early Childhood and Child Care Kate Ellis today announced the Australian Government will introduce a package of new measures to provide more flexible and accessible child care to better meet the needs of modern families.
 
The Australian Government will run a series of trials in partnership with industry, business and child care operators to provide more flexible child care hours as part of an $11 million package to increase the flexibility and accessibility of child care.
 
“We know modern families want more flexible approaches to child care to meet their family’s needs, and to be able to rely on quality, affordable, accessible child care,” Minister Ellis said.
 
“Our Government is responding to the needs of modern families by investing more than $4 million to trial new models of flexible child care that better meet the needs of modern families, and particularly shift workers.
 
“This builds on our record $23 billion investment – more than triple that of the previous Coalition Government – into early childhood education and care.
 
“We hear from parents all the time who struggle with the tag team run to pick the kids up, and we want to increase the flexibility of child care to better meet the needs of modern families. 
 
“Our Fair Work Act reforms will help make modern workplaces more flexible for parents, and we also want to explore how we can make child care more flexible to assist parents with the work/family juggle.”
 
“We recognise that every family is different, and we want to give families more choice when it comes to child care so they can make the decision that works for their family.”
 
Minister Ellis said more than 500 families in total will take part to test alternative child care arrangements to see what works best for Australian families.
 
The child care flexibility trials will take place in more than 50 sites  across the country including NSW, VIC, QLD, SA, TAS, ACT, WA and the NT and include:

• Family Day Care Australia will provide overnight and weekend care for police, nurses and paramedics who are shift workers
• The Government will trial flexible extended hours weekday care at six Goodstart Early Learning Centres across Australia for parents who struggle to make it from work in time to meet current operating hours
• More Out of School Hours Care - the Government will fund the Network of Out of School Hours Services Australia to expand out of school hours care in more locations and remove the barriers to workforce participation of strictly working around schooling hours.

Minister Ellis said the new more flexible child care measures are in response to significant changes in the nature of work in Australia over the last 50 years.
 
“In recent decades we have seen a significant growth in women’s workforce participation and this has created extra demand for child care. Over the last ten years alone, the number of women engaged in employment has increased by almost 25 per cent.
 
“There has also been a significant increase in demand for child care now because the Australian Government made child care more affordable.
 
“Since coming into government we’ve increased the Child Care Rebate from 30% where it sat under the Coalition to 50% of out of pocket costs and increased the cap to $7500 per child per year to help support more families access child care. This has had a significant impact in making child care more affordable, and during our time in Government the number of children in child care has increased by 20%.”
 
Minister Ellis said the new package of measures comes following extensive liaison and consultation by the Government with families, including at and following the Child Care Summit last year.
 
“Unlike Tony Abbott we will continue to act now to respond to families’ needs and concerns, and put in place real policies and reform to provide quality, affordable, accessible child care,” Minister Ellis said.
 
“All Abbott has said is he wants to do is have an inquiry – after the election. He will not rule out cutting the Child Care Rebate, something that is deeply unsettling for working parents who rely on the Rebate to meet their child care costs.”
 
More information on the trial visit www.mychild.gov.au 

1. Flexible Care for shiftworkers (police)
The Government will fund a trial with Family Day Care Australia (FDCA) and the Police Federation of Australia which will pair police with teams of family day care educators who will be responsible for working with police families to meet their child care needs around their shift work.

The trial will last 12 months from July 2013 and involve overnight and weekend care at six sites in NSW and Victoria.
 
The Government will fund the costs of trial including financial support for educators in recognition of greater complexity involved in providing care for shift workers. Costs to parents will vary based on the fees charged by each FDC educator, in accordance with the service fee charging policy, and the hours of care used.
 
2. Flexible Care for shiftworkers (nurses)
The Government will fund a trial with Family Day Care Australia (FDCA) and the Queensland Nurses Union and United Voice which will pair nurses and paramedics with teams of family day care educators  who will be responsible for working with their families to meet their child care needs around their shift work.

The trial will last 12 months from July 2013 and involve overnight and weekend care at three sites in Queensland.

The Government will fund the costs of trial including financial support for educators in recognition of greater complexity involved in providing care for shift workers. Costs to parents will vary based on the fees charged by each FDC educator, in accordance with the service fee charging policy, and the hours of care used.
 
3. Extended Hours Long Day Care Trial
The Government will trial extended hours weekday care at six Goodstart Early Learning Centres across Australia, with sessions offered subject to local demand.

There will be 6 trial sites across the eastern states with 2 sites offering 5 extended sessions of care per week and 4 sites offer 10 extended sessions of care per week (am and pm).

Total number of children/families participating will be determined following an Expression of Interest process.

Fees will be charged subject to the length of session, with the Australian Government to subsidise the difference between actual revenue and costs. Parents will be charged according to the current fee schedule of each centre.

The trial will run for 12 months commencing 1 July.
 
4. More Out of School Hours Care
The Government will fund the Network of Out of School Hours Services to expand out of school hours care services to meet the needs of families across Australia.

The project has two key elements:

• The creation of 12 community co-ordination project officer roles to facilitate the development of new services and provide mentoring and support to existing services participating in action research.
• The delivery of 60 action based research projects in OSHC services across Australia that are centred on utilising existing infrastructure and investing in the improved skills and knowledge of Educators to identify opportunities to create more flexible and responsive service provision for the local community.

The project will run for 15 months from July.