How has Covid-19 impacted childcare, and your maternity and parental leave? Share your experiences with MPs

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Parliament's Engagement team have been in touch with details of another Parliament debate that you can get involved with - details are below, and here's a quick article about how MNers' responses to similar threads have had an impact in Parliament. Thanks!

--------

How has Covid-19 impacted childcare, and your maternity and parental leave?

MPs on the House of Commons Petitions Committee want to know what's changed for new parents one year on from their report into the Impact of Covid-19 on maternity and parental leave (July 2020).

The Committee is also considering how the pandemic has affected the cost and provision of childcare, in response to a petition calling for an independent review of childcare funding and affordability.

The MPs would like to know:

• How have changes to Covid-19 restrictions since July 2020 affected your maternity, adoptive or parental leave?
• What kind of support from your employer or other organisations helped with your return to work?
• What can the Government to do to help parents taking maternity, adoptive or parental leave right now?
• How has the pandemic affected your ability to access, afford or provide childcare?
• What changes could the Government make to address concerns about the funding and affordability of childcare?

Answers posted on this thread or anonymously on our survey before Monday 28 June will be shared with the Committee to inform their work on this issue.

Please note: your name, and any information or opinions you provide, may be shared with the Petitions Committee and MPs, and used in Parliamentary proceedings or written material which will be on the record and available on Parliament TV, Hansard and the Parliament website. Please ensure that you are happy with your comment before sharing.

The Petitions Committee is a cross-party group of MPs appointed by the House of Commons to consider e-petitions and public (paper) petitions.

Here's a quick article about how your responses to similar threads have had an impact in Parliament.

I have already done so as I signed the petition it was linked to.

I then got the petitions reply from the Department of Education that they plan to do SFA as funding is adequate.

However every person with a child under 5 who uses childcare or would use it but can't afford it needs to complete the survey. Please put in the costs of your childcare or perspective childcare plus salary and/or mortgage/rent payments This is because the media picks up on this information and it will be quoted for years to come until the government changes policy.

I'm a teacher. I was going to take shared parental leave. But the government not deciding what additional provision for students over the summer of 2021 until last minute and then saying there will be summer schools made me decide not to as if I was to return over the summer I would feel unsafe and feel that I would be putting my baby at risk from CV19 in particular the delta variant as schools are not and have never been covid safe.
Covid spread through my school like wildfire before Christmas and I caught it whilst pregnant, it was not covid safe despite using all the measures recommended by the government. Had there been masks in school I believe things would have been very different.
As a teacher I feel sacrificed by the government.

Due to Covid bubbles my 5 year old’s school has limited access to after school clubs so he can be at school from 8:15am to 4:30pm. My daughter’s nursery now runs from 8:45am to 5:15pm. To get to school, I leave the house at 8am and get back after the nursery drop off around 9:15am when I can start work. I have to stop at 4pm to do school pick up. It’s just not possible to do a full day’s work without wrap around care. A 6 hr and 45 minute working day just doesn’t work - and that’s without the commute!

Am I missing something or does the survey not make sense if you're just needing to answer for childcare?

DD is 2.5 so her mat leave was before covid, was back at work for 2 months before lockdown so my return to work didn't really bed in before I was furloughed.

I'm also pregnant and about to go on mat leave again and covid has affected this one in that I got made redundant and miss out on SMP and enhanced mat pay. If I had got pregnant when we started trying I'd have got it from my old employer, if I'd fallen pregnant two weeks later I'd have got it from the new, Sod's law that after 6 months it worked at the time where it would be worst financially.

The government could help by paying SMP level pay to though of us who missed out on it because we lost jobs in this mess. The date my job went was because the Gov said furlough was to be ended on that date and then a day later it was extended for me there is a big difference between MA and SMP.

We have had childcare issues but the survey isn't set up for us.

We've had no wrap around care for my eldest (6) and youngest wasnt allowed to start nursery until October (was due to start July) due to covid bubbles so I had to work full time with a 10 month old for months. Employer couldn't care less about how stressful that was. Homeschooling through the year and working full time broke me and I quit my job. The lack of support or acknowledgement for the silent work we (women) were/are doing during the pandemic is atrocious.

I was pregnant last July and returned to school in September feeling very anxious about what to expect and frightened about contracting the disease and the effect it would have on my baby. I was teaching classes of 32 and did my best to keep safe. As there was no robust central guidance from the government, schools were left to protect staff and this meant we had to do some things which I felt put me at risk. I spoke to my employer and changes were made but this caused anxiety which is not needed and possibly contributed to me spotting and going to hospital to get checked. I stoped working at 28 weeks and pushed for this and I had colleagues who didn't know about this and worked until after this. Government guidance has seemed deliberately vague so responsibility falls on employers and not them. I saw different midwives throughout it all and didn't know who to talk to. I attended extra appointments at the hospital as I have an underlying health condition and several times had to wait for over one hour and in the cafe as there were no seats in the waiting room. I was extremely anxious before the scans and had to go through them by myself as my husband wasn't allowed in with me. This caused stress as it could have been a negative outcome and I would have had to deal with it alone. When the early stages of labour started, I was alone for 4 hours being assessed with very painful contractions and barely checked on. My husband was in the waiting room and I desperately needed his support. I had a traumatic birth and had to stay in hospital for a week. I could barely pickup my child and my husband was only allowed in during visiting hours. This affected me mentally and it was only after I broke down that we were given a separate room and he could stay and look after me and the baby. This shouldn't have happened and it was only after 4 midwives and student nurses refused to help me as the ward was busy that I broke down and called my husband. Women should not have had to endure this. Maternity wards are not fit for purpose. The showers were small and you had to step into them and toilets didn't have a supporting rail and were in a tiny space so I could barely lower myself on to it. I also had to carry my shampoo and shower gel in the shower as there was nowhere to put them and if I dropped them I wasn't physically able to bend down and pick them up. When I returned home our health visitor gave us extra visits even though she wasn't supposed to as they have been cut due to limited funding. These visits are vital and there should be
more rather than less. I spoke to the health visitor on the phone before birth but it would have been better to meet in person to establish a relationship. I didn't feel I got to know any maternity nurses properly as I saw different people when I was pregnant and during the birth who gave conflicting advice. With maternity classes on Zoom, we didn't get the same experience and it resulted in me feeling very isolated. My parents didn't get to see me indoors when pregnant or feel the kicks of their first grandchild as they were extremely clinically vulnerable and I am a teacher so could put them too much at risk. They also couldn't support us until after their second vaccine so we felt very alone in the initial weeks. Funding is needed and the government needs to listen to women so we are not living and working with systems ultimately designed by men who don't truly understand the physical and mental ramifications of being pregnant giving birth.

The survey doesn't make sense for parents who rely on childcare.

However the biggest affects of lockdowns and remember Scotland nurseries were close during the second one.
My preschooler has become painfully shy. Won't talk to adults including adults that he should know and trust.

The second lockdown almost cost me my job and sanity. Employer refused me furlough. Leaving me burning the candle at both ends, between work and schooling. My preschooler ended up completely neglected.

School have closed breakfast club.
Making transitions for kids to be very difficult. 45mins in the playground. No proper visit inside the school.

Thanks all for your thoughts - here's a message from Parliament's engagement team:

“Thank you to all those who have shared their experience on how covid-19 has impacted their parental leave and access to childcare. Your views and experiences will feed directly into the Petitions Committee's ongoing work on this subject.

The results of the survey and other updates will be shared on this thread. In the meantime, you can follow the Committee's latest work on Twitter and the Petitions Committee website.”

Many thanks"

Hello again

A final update from the Petitions Committee:

"Thanks so much to everyone who shared their experiences of becoming new parents during the pandemic on this thread."

"Read a short summary of what we found out from you and from respondents to our survey."

Your experiences, and the responses to the survey, informed an evidence session on this issue held on Wednesday 14 July. In the session, the Petitions Committee heard from petition creators and expert witnesses on the impact of covid-19 on new parents and childcare providers."

Read the transcript Find out more

"The Committee are reflecting on the evidence they’ve heard before deciding how to take this issue forward with the Government. For further updates, follow the Committee on Twitter or keep an eye on the Committee’s website."