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Child Care News for Parents & Carers
February 4, 2015
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Welcome back and a happy New Year. We hope you had a great festive season and summer holiday. If your child is starting child care or junior school for the first time, don't be caught out without vaccinations. Soon it's going to be Valentine's Day and whether you're a romantic or not, use the opportunity to get out without kids and have fun…maybe even start a new monthly "Date Night" for 2015.
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Tony Abbott has axed his signature paid parental leave scheme in favour of a revamped 'families package', to be developed in the lead up to this year's Budget.
The prime minister made the announcement at a speech at the Press Club this week in response to advice from the Productivity Commission and 'mums and dads around Australia'.
"…with our current budget constraints, the better focus now is on child care if we want higher participation and a stronger economy."
Mr Abbott's much lauded scheme didn't have many supporters from within the government and it wasn't widely popular with CareforKids.com.au community members either.
In last year's CareforKids.com.au Child Care and Workforce Participation Survey a full 56 per cent of you said the current scheme of 18 weeks at the minimum wage was appropriate while 58 per cent of you said Mr Abbott's proposed 6 month at full pay up to $150,000 was over the top and or too expensive for business. |
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| Are your kids vaccinated?
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Calls for segregation of unvaccinated children
Back to school and child care after the summer holidays and for many it's for the first time. A lot of parents can be caught out when they realise at the last minute that their children's vaccinations are not up to date. Do not forget to get them vaccinated.
Over the last weeks there has been a flurry of media activity in the anti-vaccination debate, due to the cancellation of the Australian tour of controversial American "anti-vaccination advocate", Sherri Tenpenny and now a RiAus director Dr Paul Willis, has said that children whose parents refuse to vaccinate them should be isolated from others.
According to Dr Willis, interviewed in the South Australian, children who are unvaccinated present a threat to the rest of the community, so if parents do not wish to have their children vaccinated, they should carry the full cost of that decision. He says that access to public facilities, particularly schools and preschools, should require vaccination.
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Get a report of child care services that have vacancies now… and receive alerts whenever services change their vacancies |
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| Date Night
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| Make this Valentine's Day special
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As a parent it's so easy to let Valentine's Day go by the wayside as just another day in the year that you're supposed to remember to do something special, but don't have the time or the energy.
When you've got little children life just takes over and taking time out just never happens. This year, make a decision to do something about it: Get the kids a babysitter or sleepovers and go and have some fun.
One of our all-time favourite shows is of course Modern Family and as a pre-Valentine's giggle and possibly some inspiration, click here to watch a tiny snippet of their Valentine's night out role play as Clive and Julianna.
While we don't expect you to go as far as role playing on your date night (unless you want to - but beware of comedy endings), it would be great if this year you actually got out and did something exciting.
Why not even make a pact to make this Valentine's Day the first of 2015's MONTHLY DATE NIGHTS.
A host of registered, police and referenced checked Babysitters are available for Valentine's Day (and every date night after that) are waiting to be booked.
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