Not For Profit vs Private Child Care

Not For Profit vs Private Child Care?

Recently an article in the Sydney Morning Herald by journalist Anne Connolly looked at the experience she had regarding her seemingly perfect, gleaming new child care centre and the lack of care shown to her child.

Not having found a child care place and days away from returning to work, the appearance of a brand new child care centre right next to her older child's school seemed almost too good to be true.

Having scored a place at said child care centre, Anne proceeded to visit the centre to help her son settle. She observed brilliant facilities and brand new shininess, but "disengaged staff, bored infants wandering aimlessly and a lack of attention and warmth from carers".

Although the ratios of staff to children seemed to adhere to regulations, the supervision was very relaxed with more concern shown to taking photos of the children to display on the afternoon slide show than engaging them in group play. Does this sound familiar? Is this sort of thing purely a big money making marketing drive by private child care companies in order to reel you in?

With limited options Anne persevered for a week but following several other visits and incidences she reclaimed her child, found family and other carers and eventually a spot at the community childcare centre, which has "chipped paint and old play equipment but the staff treat the children with care and attention" and which has proved itself to be infinitely better at caring for her son than the sparkly new private centre.

Over the next couple of years centres will be more accountable for standards, have to employ more staff to adhere to a better child:carer ratio and employ child carers with qualifications (and hopefully therefore an actual interest in what they're doing). So private sector and not for profit centres will have to up their standards and accountability… inevitably this will mean an increased cost to parents to pay for the new structure.

While there are many excellent private child care services, as well as not for profit ones, according to Anne Connolly's article, the centres with the worst reputations are those seeking big profits via a tighter-than-necessary budget.

Overworked and underpaid staff with few entitlements are more likely to let standards drop. With private child-care centres dominating the landscape, and the recent ABC child care fiasco only serving to heighten the public's mistrust of such organisations, Anne Connolly asks: can Australia successfully balance a role for private enterprise with the need for quality, affordable care for all children?

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