Welcome,
How much do you value your child's child care service? Now you can tell the world with our new Parent Rating System. It's a hugely valuable resource for parents looking for child care and needing reassurance. We also give you the 1st part of the results of our 2013 Child Care & Workforce Participation survey.

This month we're really excited to launch our new Child Care Parent Rating System. A brilliant new initiative developed for the benefit of parents and child care services alike. It enables parents to give feedback via a rating system on child care services they have experienced first hand.

The rating system enables parents to share their experiences online and to give the child care service that their child attends the public recognition it deserves.

These ratings will also become a valuable source of information for families considering using the child care service.

The built–in safeguards also ensure only fair reviews are published and child care services will have the right to review and reply to all comments made by parents if they so wish.

The system also gives valuable feedback to child care services so they know how they are going and can keep delivering a quality service.

So, we invite you to share your views and let everyone know how you rate the child care service your child attends.

The CareforKids.com.au annual child care and workforce participation survey received 2,494 responses – a record number so far in our eighth year of running the survey. Many thanks to everyone who took the time to give us their feedback.

Over the course of the next few weeks we'll be raking over the ups and downs of being a parent when it comes to child care, but this week we start with 'how long?', 'how much?' and 'Is it worth it?'

It will come as no surprise to most of you that the cost of child care is increasing while the wait for that elusive space gets longer and more expensive. 87% of parents have their children in child care due to work.

The Facts:
44% of working parents with pre school children have kids in child care for over eight hours per day; a further 39% between 7-8 hours per day and kids are most likely to be in care for three days a week.

WA and QLD parents are most likely to have their children in child care for 5 days a week (42%) and for the longest number of hours, with over half their kids being in care for over 8 hours a day.
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