Home-based educators across the region have put their hands up to care for essential workers' children during the lockdown.
The Government announced over the weekend that childcare would be made free of charge to essential workers who have children aged up to 13 years old during the Level 4 lockdown.
Nurture@Home owner Janelle Gardiner says, after Monday’s announcement that we would be staying in lockdown until at least Friday, their phones rang off the hook until well after 10pm.
Since the announcement Nurture@Home have booked in 14 new families on top of regular bookings, who are also essential workers.
Janelle says booking in Stoke and Nelson city were snapped up first, but they still had educators with availability in Rai Valley, Brightwater and south of Wakefield.
“Normally, if someone lives and works in Stoke, we will work hard to match the family with an educator in Stoke. But parents need to understand in this instance they may need to drive to get to an educator or be prepared for an educator to collect their children.”
Janelle says Monday’s lockdown announcement has made for an extremely busy time organising staff.
Educators are restricted to caring for children from one family only.
Janelle says 24 educators have put their hand up to work, compared with just three last lockdown.
“It’s amazing, I was really pleased with the response when we asked. They’ve all said they are at home anyway, often with their own children and feel like they are really helping out their community.”
Janelle says she believes more educators have put their hands up this time as the Government has included more regional providers compared to just three national providers last time.
“It’s been a lot easier this time. Last time you had to find the educators willing to do it but then they had to contract to a different provider. This time, the Ministry of Education basically asked us if we wanted to be involved and we said ‘yes’.”
Education Minister Chris Hipkins says the scheme is only for those Level 4 workers who do not have childcare in place. Parents are expected to use their own private arrangements where possible due to limited availabilities.
“Providing a free and flexible service to our essential workers is really important and one way to reduce their stress as they go about their vital work on behalf of us all,” he says.
Janelle says she has found it interesting how many solo mums are essential workers.
“There’s been a lot of enquiry from nurses at the hospital. They’ve tried to work different shifts to work around their children who now can’t go to school.”
She says often families would have a few weeks to get to know educators before they begin looking after their children but with the fast-moving nature of this lockdown that hasn’t been possible.
“We are very mindful of the young ones who are suddenly dropped off to a stranger so we are trying to put some strategies in place for that with things like phone calls to parents to find out the child’s likes and dislikes that kind of thing and Messenger calls so they children can see and talk to the educator first.”
To enquire about childcare spaces please email info@nurtureathome.co.nz
