Australian Government Support for Outside School Hours Care

1. Presentations to the Workshop on Out-of-School Hours Care and Women’s Labour Force Participation:Innovations in Provision & SupplyWednesday 21 March 2012Women’s College, University of Sydney

2. Australian Government Support for Outside School Hours Care Matthew Hardy Branch Manager, Early Childhood & Child Care Programs 21 March 2012

3. Overview • Context • Who can use Outside School Hours Care services? • Who uses Outside School Hours Care? • Australian Government Support for Outside School Hours Care Services

4. Context • Australian Government investment • Child Care Benefit and Rebate • Across all service types there are more than 15,000 CCB approved services

5. Who can use outside school hours care? • No restriction on age of children by the Australian Government • Majority of children enrolled in a service must be attending school • Must be in line with priority of access guidelines

6. Who uses outside school hours care? Number of approved outside school hours care services: June quarter 2011 Source: Child Care Management System, DEEWR

7. Who uses outside school hours care? Number of children using approved outside school hours care: June quarter 2011 Source: Child Care Management System, DEEWR

8. Support for families • Child Care Benefit (CCB) • Special Child Care Benefit (SCCB) • Grandparent Child Care Benefit (GCCB) • CCB for registered carers • Child Care Rebate (CCR) • Jobs, Education and Training Child Care fee assistance (JETCCFA)

9. Child Care Benefit CCB expenditure paid as fee relief: June quarter 2011 Source: Child Care Management System, DEEWR

10. Child Care Rebate Estimated entitlements: June quarter 2011 Source: Child Care Management System, DEEWR

11. Special Child Care Benefit Expenditure paid as fee relief: June quarter 2011 Source: Child Care Management System, DEEWR

12. Support for OSHC services • Support for services include: • Child Care Services Support Program, which incorporates: • Community Support Program • Inclusion and Professional Support Program

13. Community Support Program • Provides funding for OSHC services in the first 12 months of operations, and those eligible thereafter. • Eligibility for ongoing funding depends on service’s size and location.

14. Community Support Program • Eligibility for ongoing funding depends on: • the service’s average number of utilised places, • the remoteness area of the service as measured by the Accessibility and Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA Plus), and • The socio-economic status of the community, derived from the Socio Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA).

15. Inclusion and Professional Support Program (IPSP) • The IPSP comprises the following elements: • Inclusion Support Program • Professional Support Program

16. National Quality Framework • New national quality system • Australian Government investing $273.3 million • Key components • Commenced on 1 January 2012

17. Questions?

18. Outside school hours care: social gradients and patterns of use Rebecca Cassells and Riyana Miranti National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) Out of School Hours Care and Women’s Labour Force Participation Workshop, University of Sydney 21st March 2012

20. Why OSHC? • Use of all forms of child care has increased substantially, concurrent with maternal LFP • OSHC places have been increasing over time, and is predicted to rise by 40% over the next 20 years (Productivity Commission, 2011) • Middle years emerging as an important policy focus for children. (ARACY, UNICEF) • Child and family welfare benefits

21. Our study Key focus: patterns and transitions of OSHC care Socio-economic gradients Use of care by age of children Average hours of care Problems and difficulties with care 21

22. Data • Data = HILDA, in-confidence, child level, Wave 9, 2009 • Children – At school, 5-12 years old, parents working • Care use during school term • Around 1800 children The HILDA project was initiated and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The findings and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the authors and should not be attributed to either FaHCSIA or the Melbourne Institute.

23. Quick stats • Similar findings to LSAC/child care survey/census • 3 in 10 using any care • 1 in 10 using formal OSHC • Greater % of single parent families using any care and formal OSHC.

24. Formal OSHC SEIFA

25. Income quintiles

26. Transitions

27. Average hours of care

28. Problems/Difficulties

29. Summary • Clear social gradient for child care usage, those from more affluent areas much more likely to be using child care than those who are not • Children living in low income families are much less likely to be using formal OSHC than those in high income families. • Evidence of transition points • Many households experiencing difficulties with care access.

30. Outside school hours care: social gradients and patterns of use Rebecca Cassells rebecca.cassells@natsem.canberra.edu.au

31. Outside school hours care and maternal employment Kelly Hand and Jennifer Baxter OSHC workshop, Sydney, 21 March 2012

32. Outline of presentation • Contextual information • Maternal employment and school-aged children • OSHC and maternal employment • Paid work and childcare: key themes from qualitative studies • Employment arrangements and attitudes • Child care issues & children’s perspectives

33. Maternal employment

34. Maternal employment Hours of paid work by age of youngest child Source: LSAC B cohort (waves 1- 4), K cohort (waves 1-4)

35. Not-working mothers Reasons for not working, by age of youngest child Family includes: prefer to look after children, too busy with family Jobs includes: no jobs available, can’t find a job with enough flexibility Childcare is can’t get suitable child care Money/benefits includes: it’s not worthwhile with child care costs, would lose government benefits if worked Otheris likely to include ill health, disability, caring Source: LSAC B cohort (waves 1- 4), K cohort (waves 1-4)

36. Outside school hours care and maternal employment

37. Before school care by age of children and mothers’ usual weekly working hours OSHC = Outside school hours care Source: LSAC B cohort (wave 4), K cohort (waves 3,4)

38. After school care by age of children and mothers’ usual weekly working hours OSHC = Outside school hours care Source: LSAC B cohort (wave 4), K cohort (waves 3,4)

39. School holiday care by age of children and mothers’ usual weekly work hours OSHC = Outside school hours care Source: LSAC B cohort (wave 4), K cohort (waves 3,4)

40. Qualitative findings

41. Qualitative data • Work and Family: the Family’s Perspective (W&F) • The Family and Work Decisions Study (qualitative component) (FAWD) • The Life Around Here Study (LAH)

42. Employment arrangements and attitudes • Most mothers reported that once their youngest child was at school they either returned to work or increased their work hours • Some mothers returned to work due to external pressures such as financial reasons or pressure from partners • Most work part time

43. Employment arrangements and attitudes Some mothers decided not to return to paid work once their youngest child had started school. Reasons included: • Access to appropriate child care • Concerns about use of non-parental care • Desire to be available to participate in child’s school life • Difficulties managing sick days,school holidays etc (lone mothers) • Lack of informal care alternatives (lone mothers)

44. Employment arrangements and attitudes The thought of after school care would be the thing that would kill [the idea of returning to paid work] for me. I’m not interested in after school care, or before school care. I want to be there for my children. (Couple mother, 4 children aged 6 to 16, not in paid work)

45. Managing paid work and child care • Most employed mothers work part time • Many try and limit work hours to school times • Some take unpaid leave during school holidays • Formal before and after school care and school holiday care - try and limit this • Mix of formal and informal • Informal care from family members used by many - but can be stressful and often unstable • Small number use self care or sibling care

46. Managing paid work and child care - barriers • Availability of work during school hours • Cost of child care • Quality of care available • Working outside of normal business hours (lone mothers) • Children refusing to attend child care • Impacts on wellbeing of children - using OSHC can make for a long day

47. Barriers: cost of formal care The cost on one child for child care isn’t a great deal, but when you're multiplying it, it is a lot more, and for bigger families there's no adjustment… Particularly working families, I mean, if you're not working, it’s negligible. But when you're working, it’s a big outlay. And there's a fine line in the income, from when you're eligible for a health care card, and when you're not. You might only be earning $10 more, or $50 more, a week, than someone who’s eligible, and you're not…(Couple mother, 5 children in household aged 8 to 15, works part time hours, uses family care)

48. Barriers: quality of care • I use family day care and I have a really, really good family day carer. I’ve had some pretty shocking ones and just about decided to give up paid work because of it. But with a good family day carer where you feel that she does at least as good a job as you do it’s easy to leave the children and just forget about them while you’re at work. I don’t feel that I could work if I was constantly thinking, “I wonder what the children are up to and if they’re being cared for properly • (Lone mother, 5 children aged 5 years to 20 years, works full time hours, evening and overnight shift work)

49. Barriers: non-standard work hours • Being a nurse …I have to drop my children off so early in the morning so that I can, in order to start at 7AM shift somewhere. Which is really tricky. Having to get them up and take them physically to someone else to look after, and then get them to school, It doesn’t seem a fair thing to do for them…The ideal thing would be to have a babysitter come in and look after them but it’s just totally out of my price range. Couldn’t possibly do it. • (Lone mother, 3 children aged 6 to 11, not currently working due to lack of child care at right time)

50. Barriers: child refusing to attend care • If a couple of your good friends weren’t there it wasn’t much fun. And they much preferred to be home. Much preferred. That’s why I quit that first job,…they used to have to go to after-hours care for two hours for two days a week…you should have heard the whinging and the groaning at that! (Couple mother, 3 children aged 10 to 16, works part time)