Family Day Care Australia Policy Positions

  

Increase Network Funding by 10%
A 10% real increase in direct funding would:

•	Maintain the monitoring functions of services whereby they ensure quality standards are met regardless of geography or parental income
•	Maintain services in rural communities where family day care is often the only formal child care available
•	Allow family day care to maintain its traditional role in disability services – family day care is a disproportionately high provider of care for children with disabilities such as autism because of its small group, home-like environment

 
Increase the petrol subsidy for rural and remote services

•	Double the Rural Travel Assistance Grant (RTAG) – which is essentially a petrol subsidy – to ensure continued delivery of quality assured services in 35 remote regions
•	Increase the current 12 month funding contracts to three years to provide stability and security for these services

  

Subsidise training programs for family day care carers
Invest in the qualifications and skills of the family day care workforce by providing subsidised training programs, particularly traineeships that:

•	Can be undertaken on the job
•	Are sustained by coordination unit staff or other visiting trainers providing workplace assessment and training support
•	Are easily accessed by family day care carers
•	Are backed up with Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) programs particularly for carers who have worked in the industry for more than three years
•	Encourage carer movement through the certificate levels to a recognised diploma qualification

  

Provide Child Care Benefit for carers’ own children
Extend the eligibility for CCB to the children of family day care carers’ to:

•	Enable mothers with young children to become family day care carers rather than wait for the youngest child to reach school age
•	Greatly improve carer retention rates as we know that a substantial portion who take maternity leave do not return
•	Promote equity among child care workers by recognising family day care carers as being entitled to the same CCB while their children are in care as centre-based carers
•	Be easily monitored to prevent over-claiming and abuse

  

Improve access for children with disabilities
Extend flexible support funding to family day care so that:

•	Children can be placed easily with any carer
•	Carers are not disadvantaged by assessment waiting periods