Access to Childcare Fund: phase 2 - evaluation report

5. Achieving accessible childcare

Summary:

• Overall, the projects appear to have been broadly successful in delivering childcare that is accessible to those target families attending them.
• Features of projects that made them accessible included: straightforward and supportive sign-up and referral processes; making provision easy to get to; providing a service that appeals to families; and delivering provision that is accessible for children with ASN.
• Accessibility was underpinned by: having access to/positive relationships with schools; financing transport where required; having dedicated and responsive staff, and being able to recruit and retain suitably trained staff to support children with ASN.
• Accessibility challenges remained in relation to: provision of transport; support for children with ASN and staffing challenges more generally.

The following three chapters will cover to what extent projects met the three main aims of the Fund: making provision accessible (this chapter), flexible (Chapter 6) and affordable (Chapter 7) for families. They will also consider what processes worked more or less well in achieving this, and any challenges in providing accessible, flexible and affordable childcare and family support that remain.

Overall, the projects appear to have been broadly successful in delivering childcare that is accessible to those target families attending them. This assessment takes into account the findings of the previous chapter as well as the factors that helped to both engage and retain families, covered in this chapter.

Projects aimed to deliver provision that was accessible to target families. As described in Chapter 2, a lack of any local childcare was a barrier in some areas. Therefore, simply by existing, projects had gone some way to meeting this aim. However, while families who participated in the evaluation had typically been able to easily access a place at their project without having to go on a waiting list, some projects were operating at capacity, noting that staffing challenges were the main factor limiting further growth.

This aside, there were several ways in which projects sought to overcome (potential) barriers to access. These included: supportive and straightforward sign-up and referral processes; making provision easy to get to; providing a high-quality service; and the ability to cater for the needs of children with ASN.

These were underpinned by having: access to, and positive relationships with, schools; being able to finance transport where required; having staff who were dedicated and responsive to families, resulting in positive relationships being formed; and being able to recruit and retain suitably trained staff to support children with ASN.

Supportive and straightforward sign-up and referral processes

Straightforward sign-up processes were considered important in ensuring that families were not put off attending by administrative processes. This was borne out by the accounts of families who noted, regardless of the specific approach used, that it was very easy to sign up. The extent of registration information projects required varied, with some noting the tension between capturing the information required and not overwhelming families:

“One of the big issues that families face is that they will have a lot of stuff being done or people doing things to them and they are not really involved and often don't remember who is calling them and what person is supposed to do what […] It's about kind of negotiating the paperwork a little […] not overloading the family just because it looks better on paper.” (Project lead)

In some cases, where the registration process required more information, projects would assist families. They explained that this presented challenges but that these were easier for them to overcome than for the parent:

“It is not easy, but it is a lot easier for us to do that than it us for a single parent who is juggling five, six, seven barriers, three children, trying to keep a job down, heat a house, debate with the housing association, handle a mental health issue, it is a lot easier for us to find some admin support.” (Project lead)

Projects mentioned that there were instances where extra clarification or explanation was required in order to encourage families to sign up. This included persuading them of the potential benefits of the service or explaining eligibility criteria and why certain registration information was required. One project emphasised the need to make parents aware that participation was not contingent on them finding full-time employment:

“I think when it became very much about sustaining employment that was a learning for us […] making sure that was clear [that access wasn’t dependent on employment], that we seemed to get more referrals.” (Project lead)

Communicating these things, or allaying other concerns, could be a particular challenge to engaging parents who spoke English as a second language. Other practical features that facilitated sign-up included: offering both paper and digital options and, for SCMA, offering a single point of contact with SCMA so that families did not have to look for a childminder themselves.

Enablers and barriers to supportive sign-up processes

Projects required sufficient staffing to put the time into helping families to sign up. To help with this, one project, Indigo, had employed a family support worker whose role included helping families at the registration stage:

“Accessing that information and having the headspace and the time to be able to sit down and find that information is part of the issue for many of the families. We need a person, you need someone who is going to handhold them in those early stages when life is at its most complex.” (Project lead)

Regardless of the staff members involved, projects stressed the need for patience and understanding of families’ circumstances and the initial barriers they may face in engaging. They also spoke of the role of partnerships at this stage, for example schools helping when families were more difficult to engage. However, it was suggested that partnership working and data sharing could be further enhanced to help retain families who discontinue after a few sessions, for example if they have experienced a crisis.

One barrier identified was the need to balance having a straightforward sign-up process, requiring minimal details from families, with the need to collect information for monitoring and evaluation.

Making provision easy to get to

One of the most important accessibility features was ensuring provision was easy for families to get to. Parents stated that they would not use it otherwise:

“I think especially for parent carers [of children with ASN], your life is already full of so much going on that […] to get a break or to get childcare, you don't want it to be a hassle […]. That's what I feel about [project], if it was a hassle getting him there then the cons would outweigh the pros”. (Parent)

The main way in which projects ensured this was by locating the provision in, or on the same campus as, the school. This made it very easy for children to attend before/after school and for parents to drop off or collect them.

Families who used the SCMA childminding service also commented on importance of being able to access a childminder locally:

“That would have been a dealbreaker I think if she had lived far away, it wouldn't really have been much of a respite for myself or [children] because we would just be in the car driving.” (Parent)

Where it wasn’t possible to locate provision within a school, or when delivering holiday programmes, providing transport helped to make it more accessible:

“If it is too far away, they are no going, unless somebody is going to pick them up or walk them. That's where the transport works so well for us during the holiday programmes.” (Project lead)

The provision of transport was especially important for children with ASN:

“100% of those families [with children with ASN] that have taken transport have stated that without children being collected from school they would not have been able to use the service.” (Project monitoring report)

Enablers and barriers to making provision easy to get to

Having access to, and positive relationships with, schools was the main factor facilitating ease of access to projects. Where this was not possible, having the funds to provide transport was required. Transport remained a challenge, however, particularly in rural areas where families had few public transport options and had seen their transport costs increase as a result of the cost of living crisis. While projects wanted to increase their transport offering, they were constrained by finding the staff to provide transport for short and specific times during the day, as well as financial barriers.

Providing a service that appeals to families

As well as ensuring that provision was accessible from a practical perspective, projects had to create a service that families wanted to use. Parents stressed the importance of their children being happy while there (discussed in Chapter 9) while parents who were receiving wider support also had to feel supported by the setting (discussed in Chapter 8).

Enablers and barriers to providing a service that appeals to families

Projects were able to deliver services that met the needs and expectations of families by developing relationships with families. This related to listening to them - to enable services to be family-led - as well as targeting support/tailoring approaches to meet the needs of individual families:

“Allowing it to be entirely led by families is what makes the difference between reaching families and not.” (Project lead)

“[People] have lots going on or their circumstances are quite complex. But I think we’ve been able to be quite flexible, like people don't have to come in face to face if that doesn’t suit them, if they want to have conversations split over five different phone calls […] that's fine.” (Project lead)

Having sufficient staff who were committed to spending time developing relationships was the primary enabler to providing high quality service.

Delivering provision that is accessible for children with a range of ASN

SupERkids and SHIP specialised in provision for children with more complex ASN while other projects were used by children with ASN who attended mainstream schools. There were additional considerations in ensuring provision was accessible for children with ASN. First, projects spoke about the need to gain the trust of parents to care for their children, something important for all parents but especially those of children with ASN:

“It is a big trust to have your child that is needing a lot of support to go somewhere else other than looked after by you, especially if they have complex behavioural needs or complex medical needs […] we say families can stay with us if they want, until them and their child are comfortable.” (Project lead)

This was backed up by parents, who reported that they felt comfortable leaving their children at the projects because they know they are safe.

The location of the project was a particular consideration in making provision accessible for children with ASN. As mentioned previously, this was important in making provision easy to get to. Furthermore, when it was based in schools, this helped both in terms of parents feeling reassured that it was a safe space and for children to feel comfortable, being in a familiar space:

“It is familiar. The [project] set it up in a really secure building… you feel confident to leave him there because it is all risk assessed and so on.” (Parent)

“It is brilliant, because parking is so easy, getting in and out the building is so easy, it is somewhere he knows, and there is nobody else at the school at that time…it's not like it is a local community centre and there is another class on and you've got to try and make sure he doesn’t slap anybody else on the way out … it's calm as well, they have got it really well thought out.” (Parent)

One stakeholder described how incorporating different kinds of spaces could also help support children with different needs (e.g., quiet spaces).

Enablers/barriers to delivering accessible provision for children with ASN

First and foremost, projects had to have sufficient staff in place to deliver projects at the ratios required for the children in their care^[14]. Furthermore, staff, in particular those at projects targeted at children with ASN, had to be highly trained to be able to meet the range of needs required. Once again, the dedication of staff to develop relationships with families was crucial.

“She adores [staff member] … [name of child] was struggling to go and [staff member] said ‘listen I’ll go, I’ll be there’ and that was amazing … [name of child] went because she knew [staff member] was going to be there.” (Parent)

One project discussed the difficulties they had encountered in dealing with challenging behaviour from some children due to not always having sufficient staff to dedicate to children who required additional support or not having the training or experience to manage it. This was not discussed in an accessibility context but does raise the possibility of the project not being accessible to all.

“It brings up, I think maybe not enough staff, but it is also probably not enough expertise in dealing with some of the behaviours, so we do a wee bit of staff training, and the schools [invite] our staff along to their training.” (Project lead)

Being able to access buildings that met the needs of children with ASN was the primary enabler to providing safe and comfortable spaces. For projects dedicated to children with ASN, special schools were ideal given they were set up to accommodate these needs. Indeed, one project stakeholder noted access to suitable premises as a barrier to expanding provision into other areas due to the specific requirements such as hoists and changing places.

Case study 1: Rachel and Scott

Rachel is a lone parent and works full-time. Her teenage son, Scott (who has additional support needs) attends an after-school club most school days. It is located in Scott’s school and the timings of the club are ideal because Rachel can collect him after work. This makes it easy for her to use the service: “I'm not going out my way for him to attend, it is not a hassle… your life is already full of so much going on… you want it [childcare] to be straightforward and support[ive].”

There is no alternative after-school provision in the area that Scott could attend, and cost of hiring private care would be unaffordable: “I would be lost, because I wouldn't be able to really work, and work for me is my outlet as well.”

Staff organise various activities including baking, crafts, and outdoor activities and they ensure that children with a range of abilities can take part. Scott really enjoys going to the club and spending time with his friends. Outside of after-school club he is less able to socialise with peers due to his care needs. The highly trained staff make a big difference to how much Scott enjoys attending and to Rachel’s trust in the club: “They are really knowledgeable, really experienced…I feel we have built up these relationships with the staff over the years, and I trust them with Scott.”