Australian Institute of Family Studies

Background

Australian families are changing and so are their working patterns. More parents are working outside traditional hours and are finding it harder to find childcare that meets their needs.

About the project

The Child Care Flexibility Trials are an Australian Government initiative aimed at addressing childcare inflexibility issues by supporting services to trial more flexible care approaches. Flexible care approaches may include: modifying opening hours and exploring ways to better meet the needs of particular groups of families, such as those with older primary school aged children. The trials cover a range of projects across the long day care, family day care and outside school hours care sectors.

AIFS is conducting an evaluation of the Child Care Flexibility Trials introduced by the Department of Education and Training. The aims of the evaluation are to:

• ascertain whether the changes to the models of service provision are meeting the needs of families who require flexible child-care arrangements
• determine if these models are replicable and self-sustaining.

Contact us for further information on this project.