Creches - Lockdown III

ax530

Creche was open and my child went in (I'm not essential) I explained that I did not know if the restrictions were from today or next week she said they are the same !
Since Christmas they are only taking the school age children for full day if staff are essential (need to go out to work stuck ect) I have respected that and keep school age children at home.
Creche workers are doign an amazing job, they were one of the first services back open in June. Have adapted to restrictions really well, workforce mostly younger which are the age groups which have had most cases.
Must be frustrating for them that the teachers, nurses ect have such a powerful union voice and much better work t&c's as a result.

Beasty

I've moved everything back into a dedicated thread

pc7

I've emailed our creche this morning asking for an update on what their plan is. I am still hoping I may be able to send mine in the week of 18th if possible.

SeeMoreBut

Our creche is for essential workers only and they have a priority on that. no charge for ecce kids who are all day and not asked to go.

Also sent a lot of changes for kids when they do go back if you don't agree then no spot.

I'd expect the gov to change the rules around masks/visors they are compulsory instead of advised not to wear them.

Creche had a few cases before Christmas that it closed on 18th of Dec and not reopening until 11th. We were close contact for them and thankfully all clear after 2 round of tests.

2Mad2BeMad

Both myself and the missus are essential workers.
Our creche is closed along with 2 others in our area.
Come Monday 1 of us is gonna have to not go into work.
Can we be sacked for this? Completely taken out of our hands.
Can't get child minders due to covid. So the government's idea of making another bubble with a household for child care is flawed.
Joke of a government

Gemma1982

2Mad2BeMad wrote: »

Both myself and the missus are essential workers.
Our creche is closed along with 2 others in our area.
Come Monday 1 of us is gonna have to not go into work.
Can we be sacked for this? Completely taken out of our hands.
Can't get child minders due to covid. So the government's idea of making another bubble with a household for child care is flawed.
Joke of a government

That’s a nightmare for you. No useful suggestions I’m afraid. How did you manage in the March lockdown?

Jim_Hodge

And I'll ask again.

Where is the list of what is considered an essential worker?

The official list, what creches consider, and many of our own opinions may be all quite different.

youcancallmeal

Our creche got in touch. Basically said creche is only open for parents who are essential workers and provided this link which is for essential services. No mention of the to be updated essential workers list. Our status as essential workers is tenuous at best but will just have to wait and hope we're on it. Full of anxiety as the first lockdown was incredibly stressful looking after 2 kids under 5 and both of use trying to WFH. Also creche said those who will not/cannot send their kids in don't have to pay but I couldn't care less about the money, just want to keep the kids happy in their routine and us parents sane to work from home as normal.

mirrorwall14

I’m not creche but childminder. Childminder considering pulling out because of numbers. I’m dreading it. I was broken by the end of the last lockdown trying to juggle childcare for an 18 month old and a 5 year old.

I guess the only saving grace is they are a little older now and the 2 year old isn’t quite as terrifying to take an eye off....

2Mad2BeMad

Gemma1982 wrote: »

That’s a nightmare for you. No useful suggestions I’m afraid. How did you manage in the March lockdown?

She works in a special needs school.
So it wasn't a problem then
Now it's a nightmare.
If she doesn't go to work the kids suffer for it.

My job is to supply hospitals and medical centres with specialised taps and showers so I'm definitely on any essential list the government put out.

pc7

2Mad2BeMad could you get onto a local TD and see if any other creche could help you out? I know you mentioned the ones in area can't, is there one near your work?

salmocab

pc7 wrote: »

2Mad2BeMad could you get onto a local TD and see if any other creche could help you out? I know you mentioned the ones in area can't, is there one near your work?

Cant see any crèche taking kids temporarily. They are trying to manage numbers already they don’t need hassle settling in kids unnecessarily.

Sweet.Science

I feel for the creches

Sure parents can just say they are essential workers . How will the creche know

Also, does the government think they don't have kids themselves ? Who looks after their kids ? I suppose that doesn't matter

pc7

salmocab wrote: »

Cant see any crèche taking kids temporarily. They are trying to manage numbers already they don’t need hassle settling in kids unnecessarily.

Other side is if the have to pay staff for minding a few kids it could be cost beneficial to get funding to take in others temporarily. Its worth asking, nothing to be lost and will help that family out.

tfeldi

We are both working from home while looking after a 6 and 3 year old. We make it work by working in shifts from early morning to evening. So always one of us is with kids. Not fully getting to the required work hours, so need to use a few hours of leave per week. Works to some degree. But I'd like to get a refund of the creche fees - but no word from creche.

davo2001

Our creche said essential workers only (when technically we are not), we both WFH with demanding jobs and i'm not joking, i nearly had a mental break down from march-june last year trying to look after our 2 year old.

The creche also said they will not refund our Jan fees as they still have staff onsite they need to pay.

So i got work to write a letter saying that now i'm an essential worker and put him into creche this morning, nothing said.

They can't have it both ways, i'm not going to pay someone without getting a service in return.

JDD

davo2001 wrote: »

Our creche said essential workers only (when technically we are not), we both WFH with demanding jobs and i'm not joking, i nearly had a mental break down from march-june last year trying to look after our 2 year old.

The creche also said they will not refund our Jan fees as they still have staff onsite they need to pay.

So i got work to write a letter saying that now i'm an essential worker and put him into creche this morning, nothing said.

They can't have it both ways, i'm not going to pay someone without getting a service in return.

I'd be raging about not getting fees back. I'm sorry, if you can't provide the service, you don't get paid. I don't care if the staff have to still be onsite for other children.

I am defined as an essential worker, and I'm not saying that the work I do isn't important or crucial for the economy on a long term basis. But my employer has their head up their *ss thinking that the whole economy would collapse if a portion of their workforce worked 25 hours a week instead of 40 hours a week, for a period of eight weeks. No way should creches workers have to expose themselves to many more households because the list of essential services includes nearly every public service job (a quarter of employees) and masses of private companies too.

This just seems bonkers.

EDIT: Having said that, on a personal level I am glad I am included. I will already have two primary school children at home with me, and got nothing done with the 3 year old at home during the first lockdown. So I will be getting the letter, and dropping him off on Monday. The way I see it, we haven't had any close contacts since before Christmas, and do not expect to have any at all for the next month. There will be less children in the room with him, so less exposure risk to us, and less exposure risk to the creche workers (though obviously not nil if they are there). I also don't want to take him out temporarily because it took him months to settle in after going back in July. I couldn't put him through all that trauma again.

salmocab

I’m fairly sure they were instructed to refund for non essential parents. Only thing I will say in their defence is that it’s likely they are waiting on proper information.

Unknownability

Reading this thread makes me extremely grateful for the family support that we have and also how supportive my employer has been through this entire difficult period.

We could've made the argument that we are essential workers but felt the risk wasn't worth it even though year end is both our busiest periods.

So we are just doing the best we can and if that means not always being available and working when the kids are in bed that's what we have to do.

ThunbergsAreGo

salmocab wrote: »

I’m fairly sure they were instructed to refund for non essential parents. Only thing I will say in their defence is that it’s likely they are waiting on proper information.

It is a complete mess.

The creche is right, they do still need to have staff there to mind the essential workers - at the moment they likely have no idea who an essential workers. If they have 40% less kids that doesnt mean 40% less staff, the electricity and heating still needs to be paid.

Needs to be remembered not all creches (and I would include my childrens in this) are money grabbing gougers.

It feels very much like its guidance to creches at the moment as opposed to rules, as its all so bloody unclear.

pc7

Got this back from our creche when I asked for an update.

'Nothing yet we are awaiting Clarification from the DCYA, we hopefully will have an email going out later on or tomorrow'

JDD

ThunbergsAreGo wrote: »

It is a complete mess.

The creche is right, they do still need to have staff there to mind the essential workers - at the moment they likely have no idea who an essential workers. If they have 40% less kids that doesnt mean 40% less staff, the electricity and heating still needs to be paid.

Needs to be remembered not all creches (and I would include my childrens in this) are money grabbing gougers.

It feels very much like its guidance to creches at the moment as opposed to rules, as its all so bloody unclear.

Creche's got some kind of special government compensation last year, to pay for overheads, rent, office staff and creche workers, so that parents would not have to pay.

I would assume that this time around the government will subsidise them if say, 60% of the parents are not considered essential workers, and therefore 60% of the children cannot attend. No way is everyone going to pay €1000 per child per month for a service the creche cannot provide.

ThunbergsAreGo

JDD wrote: »

Creche's got some kind of special government compensation last year, to pay for overheads, rent, office staff and creche workers, so that parents would not have to pay.

I would assume that this time around the government will subsidise them if say, 60% of the parents are not considered essential workers, and therefore 60% of the children cannot attend. No way is everyone going to pay €1000 per child per month for a service the creche cannot provide.

Assuming with the Government is very dangerous. They are rightly waiting on guidance for that. There has been nothing, and while I dont disagree with the lockdown per say, the communications on what has been very likely for at least a week is shambolic.

Even with that, its not full pay/compensation for a creche/worker. Very difficult in an Industry where staff retention is hard to tell someone to go home for 3 months on 2/3rds pay.

salmocab

JDD wrote: »

Creche's got some kind of special government compensation last year, to pay for overheads, rent, office staff and creche workers, so that parents would not have to pay.

I would assume that this time around the government will subsidise them if say, 60% of the parents are not considered essential workers, and therefore 60% of the children cannot attend. No way is everyone going to pay €1000 per child per month for a service the creche cannot provide.

They probably will do something but crèches can’t be expected to make plans without information. The last time at least everything was done in a hurry, this has been coming for a while. Heard school principals on radio earlier saying we’ve been preparing for lots of different scenarios for months and then they threw a different scenario on us and want it up and running in a matter of days.
All these things should have been ready to go with information available immediately. Whilst some providers may take the proverbial most are in the dark and will try to do the best by everyone.

JDD

ThunbergsAreGo wrote: »

Assuming with the Government is very dangerous. They are rightly waiting on guidance for that. There has been nothing, and while I dont disagree with the lockdown per say, the communications on what has been very likely for at least a week is shambolic.

Even with that, its not full pay/compensation for a creche/worker. Very difficult in an Industry where staff retention is hard to tell someone to go home for 3 months on 2/3rds pay.

The creche subsidy scheme paid creche workers up to €586 net of tax per week. There wouldn't be many creche workers earning €30k or more a year after tax. That was all to ensure that creche's could reopen with a full staff complement once the temporary crisis had passed, and so that parents didn't have to pay fees under stressful circumstances.

There's no difference now, to then. They should get access to the same scheme, with their payment reduced to take into account the number of children of essential workers - who will continue to pay fees - that are attending the creche.

ThunbergsAreGo

JDD wrote: »

The creche subsidy scheme paid creche workers up to €586 net of tax per week. There wouldn't be many creche workers earning €30k or more a year after tax. That was all to ensure that creche's could reopen with a full staff complement once the temporary crisis had passed, and so that parents didn't have to pay fees under stressful circumstances.

There's no difference now, to then. They should get access to the same scheme, with their payment reduced to take into account the number of children of essential workers - who will continue to pay fees - that are attending the creche.

Except nothing has been said of the scheme. The government need to provide clear guidance on what needs to happen.

Instead we have had a list of essential workers taken down for over 18 hours now

Paddy1234

Does anyone know when we can expect the essential workers list to be updated?

ThunbergsAreGo wrote: »

Except nothing has been said of the scheme. The government need to provide clear guidance on what needs to happen.

Instead we have had a list of essential workers taken down for over 18 hours now

JDD

ThunbergsAreGo wrote: »

Except nothing has been said of the scheme. The government need to provide clear guidance on what needs to happen.

Instead we have had a list of essential workers taken down for over 18 hours now

Oh I know. I wonder what's taking them so long. Perhaps they have prepared exactly diddlysquat for this eventuality. I mean, no-one could have predicted the massive rise in cases post-Christmas, but surely someone somewhere might have prepared SOMETHING in case our creches had to close again?

God. This country.

angela1711

Are they updating the list of essential services or is this the final thing https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/c9158-essential-services/

My work is listed there as an essential service but I am an office worker so I am not too sure If I should still be physically attending work. Work can be 100% done from home just need to try and say that to my employer who has the utmost disregard for any sort of restrictions and only cares about profits.

Sweet.Science

The irony in complaining about creches and fees is that a lot of them might not get through this lockdown and there will be nowhere to send your kids