Childcare & Education Salaries
We know that most parents are already feeling overwhelmed and finding the right person to look after their children can, understandably, feel like a daunting task.
Our priority is to ensure we understand the families we work with - their unique challenges and what they need and want from childcare. We wanted to quantify this so that we could better support even more families and continue to lead the way in this sector. So, we undertook our largest Mumsnet survey to date, asking over 1000 parents about the challenges they faced when trying to find the right childcare.
For the vast majority of parents, the search for childcare coincides with returning to work. One in two parents admit to struggling with the ‘mental load’ of managing their household and activities for children and returning to work adds considerably to this. Most parents just need more time – whether that’s for work, for organising their household or for themselves. However, it is also crucial for parents to find the right childcare. Although experience and reliability are important to parents, a carer’s love for children and trustworthiness are top priorities. Time and again parents said that the most important thing was finding the right person who ‘got’ them as a family. Most parents also wanted flexible childcare solutions.
This survey has been invaluable to us because it shows that not only are we already providing exactly the right service to the families we work with – getting to know them and our childcare professionals personally; thinking outside the box with flexible childcare roles to suit each family; taking the stress out of the search for childcare – we will also be able to help many more families.
