What can you do for childcare over the summer?

What can you do if you have no childcare over the summer and are expected to work? Here are some tips on where things stand as of mid-July:

1. You are able to use a registered childminder. Check with your local authority’s Family Information Service. You can check what benefits you may be entitled to on www.turn2us.org.uk who have an online benefits calculator.
2. You are able to use a babysitter/nanny in your home while maintaining social distancing between adults and adhering to other safety measures.
3. You can use holiday playschemes [again check via your local Family Information Service].
4. According to the Government guidance, you can ask to be furloughed if you have already been furloughed and you have no available childcare regardless of whether your employer has gone back to work. However, your employer can turn you down.
5. You can take annual leave or unpaid leave and you could ask to bring forward your annual leave. If you have been furloughed, you will continue to accrue annual leave.
6. Single adult households [including single parent households] can join up with one other household in a bubble and they can come to your house and stay over and do not have to social distance.
7. You can also meet in a group of two households (anyone in your support bubble counts as one household), in any location ‒ public or private, indoors or outdoors. This does not need to be the same household each time. You must social distance from anyone in another bubble.
8. Children with separated parents have always been permitted to move between both households.
9. Organisations like We are Fetching are looking to provide help over the holidays.

For more information on current guidance, click here.

• Vote  
• 0
• 0
• You already voted!