Childcare Cooperative

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I have been mulling over the idea of a kind of ?childcare cooperative? for people who are self employed / work from home. Two large rooms ? one set up as a crèche and one as an office. All the parents help out in the crèche in return for free/subsidised childcare. So you do 3 hours working in the crèche and get 3 hours childcare. You would need to remain on site whilst your children are in the crèche (working in the office part).

Is this completely unworkable? I can already see loads of problems and obstacles but I am fed up with women being forced to stop working because of childcare costs and thought that a cooperative might a solution.

Your thoughts?

The Co-Op (ie Society not supermarket) do a set of leaflets about setting up social enterprise-type co-ops and there is one about setting up a childcare co-op - might help to have a look, on the business side?

What comparrisons with the costs of a private nursery. I pay £30 per day for a full day at a very good local nursery. Half day would be around £15 so would you be any cheaper plus for me I'd rather work next to my cabinet, drawers etc.

I could get a good adhoc babysitter for £6.50ph too.

Also depends on the type of industry you are in. I need to pop outside regularly, be there when employees ask questions. I assume you'd be more service sector.

Personally, I love the toddler being well away from me, no noise, all my comforts here.

Great idea and also totally fed up with paying fees as I also have to pay one day wrap around for DS1 so my monthly bill is around £300. which eats up a huge percentage of my takings.

Dont forget you'd have to pay business rates and set up this business, advertising etc. You want to make a good income too. May not be profitable at all.

Thanks mrsbladwin and bacon. I will look at the coop site. Some great points bacon. My nursery is £55 per day (and that's typical for round here) and I have just had another baby so childcare for two is going to be astronomical.

I know what you mean about having your own office stuff around but my idea would be that when you joined the coop you would get your own desk, set of drawers and access to fax / photocopier etc..

I suppose my problem is that I much prefer working away from my home - I find all the distractions at home (washing, cleaning, personal stuff) difficult to switch off from and find myself deciding that doing the washing up is much more important than attacking the accounts ! So even when the children are in nursery I would still like to have a separate office. Just thought that I could combine the idea of a rented office space with an onsite creche to solve two problems but maybe I am dreaming?.

I would not need to make a profit from it as I already have a company but maybe set up costs and running costs would be prohibitive. Thanks for your thoughts. I will continue to mull?

I like this idea.

I work from a laptop and a mobile phone, so could be anywhere. I suppose because of this I might resent having to pay for my own desk, filing cabinet etc. Tables, powerpoints and Wifi would probably be enough for me, and many others I reckon.

Maybe you could hire a church hall / community centre?

How would you accommodate the needs of those who wanted to work part-time or on a casual basis? Would the parents all need CRB checks? That's no big deal though, but what if someone came along who didn't work well with children? Could it be invite only??

There are lots of issues to think about, but it could be really good. And a nice way to meet like-minded parents for babysitting etc too.

Try to find a translation of fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A8che_parentale which is the wikipedia page for "Creches parentales" in france which appears to be what you want to set up (and the french have done them for many many years).... It might help you.
Good luck, it is a great idea