If society is willing to fund childcare for working parents - should parents of disabled children be equally entitled to this?

[MamaLlama123]

As a society we spend millions on funding childcare for working parents - policy is framed as this “free childcare for working parents”. One of the main arguments for access to this free childcare is because women shouldn’t have to give up careers/ pensions/ financial independence when they become mothers

However families of disabled/ send children often find that these hours are unusable in practice because settings can’t meet needs/ reduced timetables or simply will not offer places. Is seems unfair that mothers are expected to step down from work/ reduce hours/ absorb all caring responsibility. nurseries/ schools will often say that the requires requires a 1:1 to access the setting which no one seems prepared to fund

The parents with the highest caring responsibilities often greater financial pressure have least access to childcare and the workforce. Any if lack of childcare pushes these women/ families out of the workforce - then shouldn’t the benefits system compensate for this, for the earning and pension losses that result. An example of this that the money spent on 30hrs free childcare place to be directly given the the family

Or should these mothers/ families just accept that they should be at home? If a mother of a disabled does wish to maintain her career/ work - is this a legitimate goal that society should support or is that selfish because her child’s needs are greater.

I would be interested to hear thoughts as well as hear from families in a similar position

I think if the child receives DLA, they should increase the funding amount childcare organisations receive. It would some incentive to run special needs childcare set ups with higher ratios.

There is extra funding for early years providers when DC receive DLA. It is called Disability Access Funding. Although it is a relatively tiny amount, nowhere near enough, and isn’t necessarily what you mean I don’t think.

Regardless of DLA, providers can apply for early years inclusion funding, but this isn’t for all disabled DC, it requires jumping through the LA’s hoops, and again, isn’t always enough.

We should be funding childcare to enable the parents of disabled children to get back to work if they want to. Childcare for severely disabled children is naturally more expensive, but we shouldn’t be penalising parents for having a disabled child. It’s so beneficial for an entire family where 1 or more children are disabled, to have both parents either working, or able to access proper respite care. Parents of disabled children are still human, we should not be viewing them as unpaid carers. Paid carers don’t even get paid enough but that’s a whole other subject.