Nursery refuse to take my DC!

[DreamInLavender]

I spoke to management today and just wanted some confirmation that I could still send DS in (they sent an email out saying they're happy to try and sort things for essential workers at this time).

They asked me what I do and then said no, they couldn't take DC as I'm not an essential worker

I am, and if we go into lockdown our services are classed as essential and will continue to run. Is it really up to the nursery if they take DC or not, or are they discriminating? Yes of course they can set their own rules but not ones that discriminate surely.

I'm fuming and honestly don't know what I'll do

@InASense I'm more concerned about keeping the NHS running. The point of key worker childcare provision is to keep the NHS and other essentialsrunning, but most NHS workers, care workers etc are secondary income workers,and so if it's an either or (them or their partner) many will choose to keep their partner in work. Which leaves the NHS etc down essential workers, exacerbating the exact problem they are trying relieve.

I don't really want to send my kids to school, I'd much rather be off with, them safe at home. Not having to go in to hospitals with COVID19 infected people, potentially bringing it home with me. But when I signed up to work for the NHS I signed up knowing I may have to do just that (ebola was a possibility at the time). However, I did not sign up to risk losing our family home in order to do it. So I have a choice to make.

@DreamInLavender

Your job is very important and there’s no denying that. However, this is a pandemic and a time of crisis. To prevent the virus spreading, the government have decided to limit children in schools. Parents trying to circumvent this - because they perceive there is a value judgement on their job - is unhelpful.

There aren’t going to be any non urgent surgeries. There aren’t going to be clinics running as usual. The priority isn’t making sure you or I feel important to valued.

Not all jobs are essential in a pandemic, it may be essential while there is normal service running but this is not normal service!

I’m sure they do need support, but I believe all but urgent ops have been cancelled from next week.
Did you say what your dp does?

You are not an essential worker
Sorry OP but you just aren't

My mum is a teacher who has three kids. Her husband (like you!) earns double she does. So he's not a key-worker. Which means she is in exactly the same situation as you are. Does he stay at home (and lose their house) or does she stay at home (and lose their job)

At my school we’ve been told we can bring our own children to our school if we want. We will not be providing education as such... it really will just be childcare. On the list we were given teachers and school support staff are key workers.

The clinical staff I work with seem to deel it as a pretty essential job. And that's outside of routine day to day too. I seem very much needed (and have already been pulled in to do things outside of my own job spec elsewhere because non urgent surgery is cancelled for now)

The thing is, pretty much everyone's job is important. If they weren't (in some way) they wouldn't need doing in the first place. And we wouldn't work hard and take our jobs seriously if we didn't think they were.

But at the moment, it's about running a skeleton number of staff to keep the food chain, the NHS (the priority areas) and the emergency services in action. Anything else is gravy.

I think the definition will change over the coming weeks.
I’m a teacher and we’ve been instructed to carry on until told otherwise.
I will because our head does not expect non teaching staff to supervise pupils.
One of our TA’s was sent a text saying she’d be expected to teach any pupil with additional needs. Utter bullshit.
She won’t be doing that. There are an awful lot of people texting others about what staff at school are being expected to do who DO NOT work in education.
We’ve given san-pro to our vulnerable girls, stationary to all PP and FSM pupils. Exercise books and paper copies of work to all students today.
We’ve tried to cover every eventuality to ensure if our pupils are able to they can work at home.
My Y11s won’t have a Leavers Assembly or a Prom. First world problems I know but it’s devastating to see the effect it’s having .
To repeat: the definition will change and I bet it’ll be by Easter at the latest.

@DreamInLavender don't take it so personally, it's not a list of the most important jobs in the country, just those that in this particular scenario are deemed as essential to keep things ticking over with the bare minimum amount of people. If where you work feel that you are essential and cannot be spared, they could perhaps write a statement saying so, whether it can be overridden is doubtful though, they have to draw the line somewhere.

In addition to this, I also work for BPAS on a Saturday and that's defitnley a key worker job and a key role. The midwives there vane run without client support staff

Any particular reason why you didn't inform the nursery that you were an essential worker because you work in an abortion clinic on Saturdays?

perhaps because you don't use a nursery at the weekend so it's irrelevant

Can you explain in more detail your job , what is this ‘stuff’?
Like someone else said up thread - many people can do admin work...

Our nursery is following government guidelines as to who are classed as key workers for this situation so have told our parents we need to wait until this is clarified.

@DreaminLavender

I have some prior experience of the NHS in an admin capacity.

I'd put money on the government officials who put that list together shortly getting their ears bent by medical/senior nursing staff shortly, to the effect that they need their clinical support staff to be able to come to work too.

I have a friend who runs a small childcare business. She would happily take all her usual numbers of kids because she has to drop to just half-fees to hold their place according to her contracts. As far as she's concerned the risk of infection is greater from the kids who have NHS staff parents.

She's being told by the LA to refuse to accept the other children with parents who are still required to work by their employers. So those parents can't work properly (let's face it even if they can work from home how much can you realistically do with toddlers in the house) but have to pay 1/2 fees plus she'll have to let one of her staff go as there isn't enough work with the drop in numbers being able to attend/associate income.

Reading between the lines, in OPs previous posts and threads, she works in admin at an abortion clinic. One of the ways she goes above her salaried duties is to sometimes call patients to rearrange appointments.
I'm unsure if her Saturday employment is in the same field.

@MintyMabel no, it's not only admin staff who can do that but surely nurses and doctors should be doing what they are trained for and not sitting at a desk.

Largely for admin on wards and in small teams, it's not just writing a few letters and answering the phone (although that is a large part of it). For example, I record "contacts" I.e. when a patient has attended clinic appointments and the outcome, keep record of treatment outcome measures, manage the referrals to the team, manage the caseload for each practitioner to make sure they're not wasting time digging through piles of files for other team members etc. All stuff that takes me 20 hours a week that the medical practitioners in my team just don't have time for.

So sick of people saying admin is just answering the phone. Nurses and doctors shouldn't be having to do all of things, they should be with patients. Just because corona virus is happening doesn't mean all other medical problems just go away and other emergencies don't happen.

@TeaSoakedDisasterMagnet

I fully recognise admin goes beyond just answering phones. However, during this pandemic, many admin duties are not essential. That doesn’t mean it’s not valuable or important. They are not essential partly because clinics and operations are being cancelled.

Op, you can still go to work - you'll just have to arrange your own childcare. If you only work part time, it shouldn't be too difficult. and if it's only a part time job, it can't be to critical of a job

Tea soaked. Nobody is saying not to go to work. They're saying you're not on the list of critical roles who will receive free childcare.

My job is important. Without my role the board of directors dint know how the company is performing. We have no view of what's happening and where to out resources and money. At the moment that's become more critical. Over 2000 people depend on our support staff, to work. If our people on the ground, cant work the NHS and government buildings aren't insured. And alot of their safety equipment isnt either.

However, it doesnt make me a key worker.

shuyler and turd, I understand what you're saying. In my frustration I don't think I'm getting my point across very well, which is that some admin staff are key workers, particularly from the acute and emergency areas of the NHS. If they're sick or can't get to work those of us in elective or non urgent areas are being asked to be ready to move to the more urgent areas. At some point some NHS admin are going to be essential and the fact they're not on the list of essential key workers is silly. You can't have nurses and doctors running reception in a&e or maternity for example.

Sorry I wasn't able to be more articulate, it can take me a while to order my thoughts into something coherent enough to form a point or argument!

For those stuck in this bind (usually women particularly as in many couples if the husband does not work the family lose their house and children don't eat and bills don't get paid and key worker carer low earning woman is therefore saddled with the children so cannot work either) one option but a bit pricey is pay someone to look after the children in your home as a lot of working parents do. It may be worth the extra costs and there are a lot of students and other people out there needing work. Obviously not much use if you are a cleaner on the minimum wage but possible if you earn more than that particularly as both parents would be paying from a full time wage.

Xenia that's currently really hard though as 1) we're still having to pay for child care we cannot use (our nursery are charging 75%), so doubling our childcare costs isn't really practical (or financially possible for us) and 2) finding someone is proving incredibly difficult, as we are trying that option!

Both parents (assuming child has contact) have to be keyworkers, right?

Greenmarmalade it seems that way but hasn't been specifically stated as yet. That'll be cleared up tomorrow. I'm really hoping not.