National Pyjama Day 2023

Dealing with the Pandemic: Member Consultation Project

Dealing with the Pandemic: Member Consultation Project

After being closed for more than three and a half months, early years services in Ireland were authorised to resume their activities from June 29. According to official sources, 85% of services that are normally open over the summer have reopened, indicating that the process has so far been successful. To support the full reopening of the sector from September, Early Childhood Ireland conducted a research project aimed at gaining an in-depth understanding of how members have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis and identifying the main challenges that lay ahead. More specifically, our objectives were twofold: (1) to identify the strategies used by early years providers to deal with the lockdown, along with reasons for choosing those actions, and (2) to identify their main concerns and considerations about reopening.

 

The study was based on one-to-one semi-structured interviews with a sample of members of Early Childhood Ireland. The sample included providers that were as different from each other as possible, based on service type and location. Preliminary results showed, as we could expect, that the main strategy used by participants to weather the lockdown was signing up to the Wage Childcare Subsidy Scheme (WCSS). But the interviews revealed important nuances of the policy. First and foremost, it was key to maintaining employment ties in the sector and in keeping settings afloat during the period. However, the operational difficulties and the lack of tailoring of the supports for overhead costs to specific types of settings were pointed as important weaknesses. Moreover, the interviews suggested that a lack of clarity and conflicting information from different sources were the main causes of non-participation in the scheme. This way, the decision to not participate was caused by failures in communication with the target group, instead of any real problem with the scheme itself.

 

Overall, when looking into the future, the COVID-19 pandemic added an extra layer of complexity to pre-existing problems. Take staffing, for example. According to Pobal (2019), more than half of services reported having challenges in recruiting qualified staff in 2018/2019. With COVID, participants are expecting further recruitment difficulties, related to holidays, sick leave and increased staffing demands. The virus also created new problems, such as reduced levels of uptake and renewed challenges related to children’s wellbeing. Not surprisingly, high levels of stress and anxiety amongst providers have been reported. However, the June reopening package was well received by participants, which suggests that government actions have been proportionate to the seriousness of the problem. The increased policy focus on the sector could help ease the tense relationship between the State and providers – but that will ultimately depend on future policy developments.

 

A report, with detailed discussion of results, will soon be available on Early Childhood Ireland’s website. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all members who have kindly agreed to take some time off their busy schedules to share their experiences with us. Your voices will help to shape the future of the sector for everyone involved, and ultimately support better experiences for babies and children.

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