Securing sufficiency
This toolkit has been produced by the National Childminding
Association to demonstrate:
- how registered childminders can help to meet childcare
sufficiency gaps
- the importance of involving childminding services in childcare
sufficiency action planning.
The toolkit highlights existing good practice in developing
childminding to meet families’ needs. It outlines some of the
challenges that local authority childminding services can face, and
offers suggestions for how your local childminding sector can play
a key role in the childcare market, enhancing the childcare choices
for local parents in order to help them take up work and
training.
Despite some fall in numbers, 60,000 childminders still provide
around a quarter of all childcare places nationally, and
childminders constitute the largest sector of registered childcare
provision in most local authority areas.
Quality is increasing across the profession, with nine per
cent of childminders rated
‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in 2009. Despite all this, childminding
is often overlooked when discussing childcare sufficiency.
The purpose of Minding The Gaps, and the seminar that it
accompanies, is to show that childminding, with its unique
qualities, can be the best solution to many sufficiency issues.
For more information about how NCMA can help, please email
info@ncma.org.uk.