Childcare Protocol in Wales - Research Proposal Example

Childcare Protocol in Wales: Is there Geographic Disparity? Quality childcare is a universal concern of all parents. We want to ensure that while we are apart from our children; whether at work, while attending school to improve employment options, or to afford them social interaction with other children their age; our children are safe and well taken care of. The Welsh government has taken great strides recently to bring to the forefront the central issues surrounding childcare in Wales. These include cost, availability and quality of registered childcare. The focus of this paper is not to elaborate on specific programs; rather it will examine the question of whether the government’s protocol has had geographical implications between North and South Wales. Further, if disparity does exist, methodology to ascertain if its foundation is based on government attitude and bias will be examined. Childcare Protocol in Wales: Is there Geographic Disparity? Quality childcare is a universal concern of all parents. We want to ensure that while we are apart from our children; whether at work, while attending school to improve employment options, or to afford them social interaction with other children their age; our children are safe and well taken care of. The Welsh government has taken great strides recently to bring to the forefront the central issues surrounding childcare in Wales. These include cost, availability and quality of registered childcare. The focus of this paper is not to elaborate on specific programs; rather it will examine the question of whether the government’s protocol has had geographical implications between North and South Wales. Further, if disparity does exist, methodology to ascertain if its foundation is based on government attitude and bias will be examined Introduction The Daycare Trust, the national childcare charity, released their data for 2005 regarding availability and cost of quality daycare within the UK and Wales specifically in November of 2005. The focus of the trust is to ensure that all children have access to quality daycare at an affordable price. There is far to go to meet this goal. The trust is mindful of the importance of quality childcare in the lives of all children “because it affects their daily experience and their future life chances. It benefits children’s social, cognitive and emotional development and improves educational attainment, while at the same time allowing parents to take up employment and training opportunities which help to protect families from poverty.” (Daycare Trust Annual Review, 2005, p. 1) To that end the trust in conjunction with the government have launched an initiative where by 2020 all children up to age 16 will have access to quality, affordable daycare. They ascertain that quality daycare that meets the needs of all children is a requisite requirement for every child regardless of socio-economic class, gender, race, special needs, and employment of parents or family background. A primary goal of the government is their working towards ensuring that each community, regardless of size or location, will have a quality childcare centre. These centres will be much more than a holding tank for children. Rather, they will be all encompassing “with a seamless service of daycare, early education, play opportunities, health services, family support and professional development.” (Dallimore, pp. 4) Theoretical Framework The trust understands the importance of childcare to parents as well as children and visualises that quality childcare facilities will be a central focal point of the community as are schools. The government has taken a similar stance seeing the need for improvement in this area; it published in December of 2004 a ten year strategy for childcare. Placing childcare so high on their priority list is very promising that sweeping changes may be accomplished leading to a vast improvement in quality and availability of childcare to all Welsh children. Sadly such is not the case now. The benefits of a strong childcare network are immense in improving the quality of life of families There are a number of factors which may impact the delivery and quality from region to region. This is not due to the geographic location, per se, rather the socio-economic and culture of these areas. Where there is a high concentration of poverty, deprivation, unemployment and lack of employable skills naturally the ability to pay for childcare decreases significantly. Unfortunately, those areas that need the services the most house those who are, most likely, least able to afford them. This cyclic chain of poverty must be broken In order to determine if in fact there is disparity amongst the North and South with regard to qualified childcare, a brief literature review will be conducted. The main focus will be gathering empirical data rather than public opinion information. It is through data collection and analysis that a real disparity can be shown to exist. Upon review of the literature a brief discussion will follow summarising findings and drawing some initial conclusions which will assist in determining methodology to be employed in a more in-depth analysis of childcare in Wales. Brief Literature Review “Children’s Information Services in Wales suggest that a minimum of £100k per annum is required to fund an effective service in each local authority area. The Group is concerned over the use of Cymorth funding to support what is a statutory service required of local authorities.” (Dallimore. p.14) The underlying problem with that thinking is that although publicly espousing the need for quality childcare in every community special consideration needs to be given to those areas who unfortunately are in greatest need of the services and least able to afford them. In an attempt to address this issue the government has enumerated several measures undertaken in an attempt to eliminate the disparity of services: The Child Tax Credit system which offers subsidies to help defray the cost of daycare for lower income families; various start up grants which offer funding towards the supplying of new certified childcare services; funding streams including Cymorth mentioned above as well as European Structural funds to create and sustain the number of childcare facilities available; and supporting other voluntary sources of funding including fund raising to assist in the sustaining of voluntary organizations designed to provide childcare benefits. To date the government has recognized this problem and although it has been discussed that childcare centres in impoverished areas should be fully funded by the government; however, as of yet the government has not established long term plans for that funding. In the final report of the Welsh Assembly Government Childcare Working Group, A Flying Start, Dallimore points out that there is a great disparity between North and South Wales in the availability of quality childcare centres. Figure 1 below found in the above mentioned report shows the breakdown of childcare centres by locale and the disparity becomes obvious. Figure 1: The number of registered childcare places per 100 children widely as demonstrated in figure 1. There is a broad north-south split in levels of childcare with the average number of places available to parents in North Wales much higher than in South Wales. Aged 0-14 by local authority (Dallimore, pp. 20) The government has acknowledged that there is a need to pay special consideration to areas of concentrated poverty and deprivation. The means that they will achieve that are as yet not fully known merely acknowledged. The government has mentioned that funding in these deprived areas should be made available through the government In their report the government stated that “The variation in the availability of childcare is of concern to the Group, but it is recognised that more investigation is crucial to ascertain a true picture of supply and demand, availability and sustainability and choice within the childcare sector in Wales (for all ages, and including open-access provision).” (Dallimore, pp. 21) The report further recommends that further study is required. Also important to note is the fact that there is no mention nor plan of what the further research will entail, when it will commence or who will conduct the research which lends credence to the possibility that although the problem is recognized in highly concentrated levels within the southern portion of Wales there appears to be no hurry to remedy the lack of affordable quality daycare in these impoverished areas. Another area of concern is the staffing and quality of childcare workers. With turnover rates estimated to be approximately 40%, low pay rates, and lack of viable training available to meet legislative requirements much should be done in this area to improve this situation and lend a greater stability to the existing childcare network. One of the major solutions the board offered was to recruit more men into the childcare sector. (Childcare Facts, 2005, n.p.) There is some rationale for this in that men are traditionally paid more than are their female counterparts for similar jobs; however, this does not address the underlying problem. A majority of children living in poverty are living in single parent households the majority of which are single mothers. Land in her 2004 paper on children in poverty, women and childcare offered evidence of the numbers of families living in poverty in Wales and further broke down the data by family composition and household size. Figure 2 below compares the percentage of lone parent versus dual parent families and further breaks down the data by number of children in the household. Figure 2 Distribution of Families by Single or Dual Parent Status (Land, 2004, pp. 3) Although as number of children increases within the family the greater likelihood that the family make up will have two parents present, it still remains that a vast number of children live in a single parent home which greatly increases the likelihood for deprivation brought on by poverty. Another table found within Land’s paper showed the relationship of poverty to households with at least one parent disabled. 40% of all children living in extreme poverty (the bottom economically) have at least one parent who is disabled. Further, when you look at children living in poverty 67% have at least one parent who is disabled. In contrast 22% of children in extreme poverty have able bodied parents while 48% of children living in poverty reside with able bodied parents. Table 3: Children living in poverty who have a disabled parent (Land, 2004, pp. 3) While these figures may not be surprising, as one would assume that a disabled parent would not have the earning capacity that an able bodied adult possesses, it is significant when examining the disparity between North and South Wales. In Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation Summary Report for 2005, it was noted that the vast majority of all Welsh citizens with chronic health problems or disabilities are located in the southern valleys of the Country. According to the finding of the survey the factors which lead to this determination were derived from examining the instances of limiting long term illnesses (disability), death and cancer rates. Table 4 below gives a better pictorial representation of the disparity of distribution of Welsh citizens with severe health concerns. As evidenced, the vast majority are heavily concentrated in South Wales. Table 4: Distribution of citizens with disabilities/serious health conditions (Welsh Index, 2005, pp. 28) The Civil Service itself has seen disparity within the childcare sector. In 2002 the Cabinet Office contracted with the Daycare Trust to investigate claims of disparity of treatment within the various branches and locations of civil servants. This move to investigate perceived disparity was a positive move by the government to address a potential inequality within its own ranks. To reach a conclusion on the situation the Daycare Trust sent surveys to 74 various departments and agencies within the civil service sector. Additionally, they conducted telephone surveys with various parents actually utilizing child care services to garner their opinions. Findings of the survey showed that as with their civilian counterparts childcare costs were ever increasing and there was a lack of availability of quality childcare centres. Within the various departments however, there was a wide range of services available depending on locality which resulted in the view that there was a vast amount of disparity. Some agencies or departments had on site childcare available while other agencies had none. Depending on the location of assignment often impacted whether a parent could benefit from on-site child care or whether they had on to rely on government subsidies afforded all citizens. The Child Trust recommended further study to remove those barriers. Aims and Objectives One of the major problems faced when examining this topic is the lack of data readily available. Through a review of the literature it became apparent that there has been no formalized study on the disparity of services based on geographic location. However, there have been inferences made and in recent years better all encompassing data is being collected that may be of further use in investigating this phenomenon. To that end, although several specific instances have been found that unequivocally mention geographic disparity in the literature, much of the information provided is from researching the literature and drawing conclusions based on data obtained rather than on merely relaying results of already known facts. The beginning point, therefore, becomes how best to collect data to examine the hypothesis - Throughout Wales the Welsh Assembly have put a great deal of emphasis on developing quality registered childcare. Whilst achieving this, is the protocol varied between the North and South divide, if, to what extent? Whilst aiming to achieve this, is it apparent that authorities have different attitudes and is this significantly apparent between the North and South Counties? Research Design As with any research, the most important factor which will affect the success or failure of the project is the methodology and design of the research. Through the brief review of the literature it seems that there is, in fact, a disparity of service with regard to childcare between North and South Wales. However, there is not a great deal of specific empirical evidence to substantiate that. Secondly, the disparity, if it exists, may or may not be due to authority attitude, but rather could very well be caused by other factors. To that end, in designing the methodology to test the hypothesis several methodologies will be utilised. First utilising data from Table 5 below, the author will gather data on existing childcare facilities within regions prior to implementation of the government’s new indicatives and current data on daycare facilities available within region. This data will be used to see how daycare centres and placement availabilities have increased or decreased region by region. This data will then be used to for additional in-depth literature review. Also, as there is a great deal of public perception that the disparity is real and not based on other factors, the author feels it would be advantageous and interesting as an aside portion of the paper to prepare and distribute an open ended survey to parents with school aged children in some of the various locales. There is a wealth of information available on how to draw up questions for a survey that are not leading, use of white space, using adjective scales for responses and brevity of the survey. Although the distribution has not been established, it may be possible to gain assistance through schools or parent organizations. The survey can be worked on in conjunction with the empirical study so will not impede research. Once the literature research and empirical data is complete analysis will be conducted followed by conclusions and recommendations. Table 5: Childcare Link Map of Geographic Locations for Registered Childcare Centres (Sure Start, 2006) National and Local Childcare information please select a region from the map: Conclusion Whenever situations develop involving issues dealing with one’s children there will naturally be emotional debate involved. The massive problem of childcare availability, affordability and accessibility needs to be addressed. Strides are being made; however, it never seems like enough is done fast enough. If disparity does exist it only compounds an already serious problem. If disparity exists it needs to be brought out into the open, discussed and further be resolved. Only through empirical data collection and analysis can this be accomplished. Works Cited Childcare Facts: Men and Childcare. 28 Dec. 2005. Daycare Trust - National Childcare Charity Website. Retrieved December 27, 2005, from . Dallimore, David. (2005). A Flying Start: Childcare for children, parents, communities. A final report of the Welsh Assembly Government Childcare Working Group. 27 Dec. 2005. Daycare Trust - National Childcare Charity Website. Retrieved December 27, 2005, from . Daycare Trust Annual Review 2005. (2005) Daycare Trust. The National childcare Campaign Accessed December 27, 2005, from . Developing a Strategy for Childcare Support within the Civil Service. (Sep. 2002) Daycare Trust Website. Retrieved December 28, 2005, from . Land, Hillary. (2004). Women, Child Poverty and Childcare: Making the Links. 27 Dec. 2005. Daycare Trust - National Childcare Charity Website. Retrieved December 27, 2005, from . Sure Start Child Care Link. (19 Jan. 2006). Child Care Link for National and Local Childcare Information Website. Scottish Executive. Retrieved Jan. 19, 2006, from . Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2005 Survey Results. (2005). Welsh Assembly Government Statistical Directorate. Retrieved December 28, 2005, from . Read More