COMMUNITY CHILDCARE services in disadvantaged areas face a “staffing crisis” over coming months as cuts to Community Employment schemes mean facilities cannot fill vacancies.
Some facilities say they may have to close at a time when the Department of Social Protection is seeking to get lone parents whose youngest child has reached seven out to work.
Siptu, which represents workers in the community sector, estimates about 70 per cent of Community Employment (CE) workers in community childcare facilities are lone parents.
Changes to the CE scheme for lone parents introduced in last year’s budget have made participation less attractive than remaining on the One Parent Family payment, according to Darragh O’Connor, community organiser with Siptu.
Also cuts to the training budget mean new participants will not gain a childcare qualification.
The 1,288 community childcare facilities nationally are heavily subsidised and operate in socially disadvantaged areas. About 20 per cent of the 8,200 staff are CE workers.
“The vast majority are women from disadvantaged areas themselves and a very high proportion are lone parents,” says Mr O’Connor.
Prior to Budget 2012, lone parents participating in the CE scheme could keep their One Parent Family payment of €188 per week, as well as receiving the CE scheme payment of €208 per week. Since January they must give up the one-parent payment.
“It was fair wage for a tough job,” says John Matthews, manager of the Ages and Stages community childcare service in Dundalk. “Now it’s just €20 more than the lone parent ‘book’ . They have children so they have to organise and pay for childcare, so they’re at a loss.”
He is in “dire straits”. He has lost four CE workers since January as they came to the end of their schemes, and is due to lose another three this month.
“No one is applying for the schemes in childcare anymore.”
Ages and Stages has 69 children aged six months to five years. He employs 11 staff and now has 26 CE workers, about 18 of who are lone parents.
“Lone parents were attracted to it because they could keep their book and they are used to looking after kids.
“When I’d put an ad up in Fás last year, I’d have eight or 10 applicants a day. I’ve had an ad up for three months now and I’ve had two applicants.”
If he cannot fill the vacancies he may have to cut child places and may eventually have to close.
The facility was purpose-built in 2008 at a cost of €800,000 provided from the National Childcare Investment Programme.
A further issue is the 66 per cent cut in the training budget for CE schemes.
While CE workers in childcare projects had been receiving full training towards a level-six Fetac qualification, new participants will receive only basic first aid and health-and-safety training.
“So they won’t even get a qualification from the CE in childcare anymore. It’s a lose/lose situation,” said Mr Matthews.
“They should have graduated the cut or something, allowed them keep half the book and keep the training.
“Then there’d be an incentive, they’d get training and they could give up their book and get a job after it.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Social Protection said the “overall trend in demand for CE places has not declined in recent months”.
Income support for lone parents had been “passive in nature with little systematic engagement by the State with the customer. This passive income support for people of working age is not now considered to be in the best interests of the recipient, of their children or of society.”
COMMUNITY EMPLOYMENT POSTS 'NO ONE'S APPLYING ANYMORE'
THERE USED to be 30-40 applicants for every Community Employment (CE) position advertised at Little Treasures community childcare centre in Ballyfermot, Dublin.
"We've had one applicant for the place we advertised last week. And that was from Donegal," says Mary McManus, the centre's CE supervisor.
"No one's applying anymore. We have 18 on the CE scheme here and we are due to lose seven of them in the next few months."
Since it opened in April 2000, there have been hundreds of CE workers here; the majority are single mothers from the area who have gained Fetac qualifications in childcare. A high percentage of them have gone on to full- and part-time employment.
"We couldn't function without CE workers," says manager Linda Ratican. From the manager's point of view, the CE participants are invaluable, being motivated, generally familiar with children and paid for by the State.
From the State's point of view, the welfare-dependent participants were getting invaluable on-the-job training far less expensively than in a third-level institution, enabling them to become financially independent. The State was also gaining childcare workers more cheaply than employing on the open market.
Ms McManus has now put up posters around the area inviting applicants on jobseeker's benefit/allowance, pointing out they could get €20 a week more on CE than their current income.
"Most jobseekers aren't going to want to work in childcare though. It's vocational work. It suited lone parents but there's a psychological block now about giving up the 'book', organising childcare and then worrying about whether they'd get the 'book' back at the end of the year.
"It probably was too much letting them keep their whole lone parents' allowance as well as the CE payment. But the correction is wrong. It's not working. I don't know what we are going to do."
