'It's diabolical': Childcare centres in chaos on first day of lockdown
Just one child attended Dawson Street Childrens’ Co-operative in Brunswick today.
The child’s parents were the only family that managed to get their permit signed by their employer last night, centre director Narelle Lawton said.
Narelle Lawton, director of Dawson Street Children's Co-operative, said parents had not been given enough time to get their permits in. Credit:Eddie Jim
Having announced on Sunday that access to childcare would be limited from Thursday under Melbourne’s stage four coronavirus restrictions, the Andrews government took until Wednesday evening to release the permission form parents need to gain access to care.
Three other parents at the Brunswick service, all medical workers, could not produce their forms in time to get their children into the centre on Thursday morning, Ms Lawton said.
“It’s just been diabolical,” she said.
“Three emergency services families haven’t been able to bring their children in today, because ... their workplaces haven’t been able to get the letter signed.”
Ms Lawton said she was still unsure of how many families will use the not-for-profit service during lockdown and how many staff she will need.
Ms Lawton expects that those staff who are not needed on-site will lose income.
“We won’t be standing staff down but the intention is to pay staff half wages if they’re not on premises,” she said. “We don’t want to be doing that but as a not-for-profit organisation we don’t have any option.”
The stage four restrictions are an attempt to drive down stubbornly high numbers of new COVID-19 infections in Victoria, and include extensive limits on which industries can operate.
Health Minister Jenny Mikakos released a final list of permitted industries shortly after midnight on Thursday.
The federal government injected an extra $33 million into the Victorian childcare sector on Wednesday, to cover the cost of lost fees as parents are forced to keep their children home.
Families in Melbourne’s lockdown areas have been given 30 more days of “allowable absences” over the next six weeks, meaning they will not have to pay to keep their children enrolled, conditional upon each centre agreeing to waive the gap fees they ordinarily charge.
Centres will receive a top-up on transitional payments they currently receive from the Commonwealth to pay staff.
The size of the top-up payments will depend on how many children are absent, with centres that have an attendance rate below 30 per cent to get top-up payments of up to 25 per cent.
Those with an attendance rate of more than 30 per cent will get a 5 per cent top-up.
Daniela Kavoukas, policy and advocacy co-ordinator at the Community Child Care Association, said the government’s 11th-hour release of information meant services did not know how many parents would be able to send their children in the next six weeks, and therefore how much financial support they will receive.
“We’ve had some centres say we’ll be OK, others have said it’ll be a nightmare,” Ms Kavoukas said. “But it is going to be a loss for a service over six weeks.”
Cardinia Lakes Early Learning Centre director Tamika Hicks said attendance numbers had already dropped dramatically.
"Today we had 107 children booked in and we've currently got 12 children," she said.
"We've sent quite a few staff home early, some are doing program planning, we're doing a spring clean. We've got no choice but to make it work," she said.
Ms Hicks said she would not have to stand any employees down but only because staff were working together to share absences, using annual leave and taking brief periods of leave without pay.
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