Wrap around childcare

[Nel81]

Hiya, just wondering what people have done with regards to wraparound care for children with social, emotional and behavioural issues? My son is starting at a specialist unit in September but, even with the home to school transport, his days will be shorter. He'll probably be picked up at 9am and dropped off at 3pm. I'd only need someone for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon as, (when I return to work), I'd leave at 8:15 and get home for 4. E wasn't allowed to breakfast club or after school as he couldn't cope and was lashing out so not sure if he'd cope with a group childminder (and I dont even think we have one in our village any more). I'm not going back until after may half term so have time to look into things. Thanks

Hi @Nel81

Childcare is a nightmare for disabled/SEND children, and specialist settings are so difficult for wrap around. At least my DDs special school does a normal day of 9-3.15, many round here do 9-2 or similar!! It's one of the reasons I now work part time, its just a nightmare otherwise.

You may find posting in the SEND type boards more useful, and especially your local SEND Facebook pages. But to be honest the hours you're looking for are the peak times of demand and really hard/impossible to get. Even if the council funded you some direct payments hours (which is an EXTREMELY big if!!) you're going to struggle to get someone to do 2 blocks of 1 hour a day, as they can get more work in blocks so don't need to commute between. I run a care company and requests similar to what you're asking unfortunately we don't even look at they are so fiddly to fill.

For my own children I've had particular success with getting people I know rather than putting ads out, if you're part of a church/other faith group ask around there for retired people or uni students who may do babysitting for you, rather than for someone whom it's a career. I have some lovely retired teachers and 1 uni student who will step in to look after DD and that works great .

I agree with @Beetham its very difficult to get decent care for kids with additional support needs, I still have this problem because there just isn’t childcare for young teens who can’t quite be left alone.

What did work was having a small network of people happy to come to my house for an hour morning and afternoon. I had a college student in the morning and a retired teacher in the afternoon - no worries about needing to be registered because they were basically babysitting in my home and they were trusted people I knew well. Formal childcare settings will be more tricky unless you’re able to pay them full costs for a shorter time. My childminder would charge 3 hours for the one hour I actually needed.