Crèches opening

loriexxx

Is anyone holding out hope crèches will be back open before the Summer is over

Gatling

Highly doubt it's going to happen at all , explain how 2-3 year old will or can be controlled using social distancing ,even mentioned this one day a week is silly considering how little is know about the current situation

By the sounds of many have moved straight to planning for September ,

cant26

I’d say even September is optimistic

maxsmum

Just going from a lot of colleagues in work, they're stuck at home until creches reopen. I am in a pretty female heavy section of HSE. We have a boy in school who can't go to granny for summer hols so we are the same. Not opening til September seems crazy. Am I right in that minders can't come to the house in light of the restrictions? What on earth do Govt expect workers to do?

iAcesHigh

Looking at what other countries are doing I would actually expect creches to be among the first ones to open....

shesty

To be honest, creches don't even seem to be om the agenda.Nor do pre-schools....I was wondering about them myself.
A bit of me thinks the Government are going to have to see the light at some point and realise that unless they open them there thousands of people who will have serious problems working, no matter how many industries are slowly reopened.
As someone said to me recently they aren't on the agenda because they aren't a problem the Gov have to be aware of, because the childcare is magically happening (albeit through the working parents).

skallywag

shesty wrote: »

A bit of me thinks the Government are going to have to see the light at some point and realise that unless they open them there thousands of people who will have serious problems working, no matter how many industries are slowly reopened.

This topic is most certainly in focus, as it is plainly obvious that folk cannot return to work until child care is taken care of.

That said, the implementation under the current distancing guidelines could be extremely complex. It is one thing trying to get the older children back to school in a 'safe' way, but it is a whole different ballgame when dealing with children of creche going age.

Different countries are beginning to open up already, and you can be quite sure that we will be looking very closely at how they fare.

shesty

I would hope so.

John Mason

Not a hope. The government have cancelled all their payment schemes.

And even if they do open up, I would say at least 25% will never open up again

iAcesHigh

Looking at Gov plan it's quite surprising not? They claimed they'll take lead from countries that can afford to get reversal effect in short period of time, likes of Denmark and Norway, and yet while those countries opened creches in very first phase knowing people can't go to work without those, it's only included in phase 4/5 here so end of July/beginning of August - don't really see any logic....

Sleeper12

maxsmum wrote: »

Just going from a lot of colleagues in work, they're stuck at home until creches reopen. I am in a pretty female heavy section of HSE. We have a boy in school who can't go to granny for summer hols so we are the same. Not opening til September seems crazy. Am I right in that minders can't come to the house in light of the restrictions? What on earth do Govt expect workers to do?

Childminders can go to your home if you are essential worker

"Childcare workers who mind children in the home are considered essential workers. This means they can carry out their work as usual. This will allow other essential workers, such as healthcare workers, to do their work.

But child-minding should only happen in the child’s home. It should not be in the carer's home. This is to avoid households mixing. It's important as part of the stay at home measures."

https://www2.hse.ie/wellbeing/child-health/advice-children-parents-covid-19.html

shesty

iAcesHigh wrote: »

Looking at Gov plan it's quite surprising not? They claimed they'll take lead from countries that can afford to get reversal effect in short period of time, likes of Denmark and Norway, and yet while those countries opened creches in very first phase knowing people can't go to work without those, it's only included in phase 4/5 here so end of July/beginning of August - don't really see any logic....

Couple of random points here that I have observed in the last week...

Those countries have much higher child/teacher ratios than we do.School class sizes are much smaller.All in all, what this is really highlighting is the total deficit in our education and childcare sectors.Pawning it off til September, and a kind return to a status quo, means it stays unnoticed....

Noticeably, on Tuesday, Leo Varadkar apparently gave all of his Ministers a couple of minutes each to air their opinions on the situation to date, next steps, etc.Apparently the prevailing themes were opening DIY stores, cocooners and the lessening of restrictions for them, and a return to normality.There seems to have been little or no mention of kids or childcare or working parents.Suggesting 2 things to me....firstly, kids don't vote, and therefore don't matter and secondly, the parents (working or otherwise) of the kids do not have time to be contacting their local TDs and Ministers about the situation.

There is a slowly growing body of evidence that children do not, in fact, transmit the virus as superspreaders, as was originally thought.This seems to have appeared all of nowhere in Irish news coverage.It warranted a very small paragraph at the end of an article in the Indo today.To my mind, it should be right up there at the top of the list of things that need investigating.

It feels like the Gov just said meh, feck the schools, too difficult to sort, parents will manage childcare and we can just kind of bury it as an issue anyway.Ther eis a good article in today's IT here....

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/what-are-working-parents-supposed-to-do-between-now-and-september-1.4242875?mode=amp

She makes the valid point that if something isn't done, parents will simply start getting grandparents and playdates to take care of childcare, and that is the whole point of what we have been trying to avoid.I was speaking to a number of friends who are working mothers on Friday night-they were extremely upset by the announcement, just feel like we are carrying the can in all of this for longest, and nobody cares.

By no way am I suggesting there is some sort of silver bullet to magically make this work.But I feel like we are burying our heads in the sand and hoping that sure once Sept comes we can kind of manage as normal and who will be any the wiser.And what happens up to then is the parent's problem.But unfortunately it is not that simple, it is the wider economy's problem, and Government's problem.

skallywag

shesty wrote: »

There is a slowly growing body of evidence that children do not, in fact, transmit the virus as superspreaders, as was originally thought.This seems to have appeared all of nowhere in Irish news coverage.It warranted a very small paragraph at the end of an article in the Indo today.To my mind, it should be right up there at the top of the list of things that need investigating.

It was front page news in the Irish Independent middle of last week:

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/coronavirus/swiss-elderly-told-they-can-hug-children-who-are-under-10-as-theyre-not-spreaders-39166432.html

It is very dangerous to begin to peddle this type of information though, as it is currently little more than conjecture, until the time comes that we have managed to gather enough statistical information to make an intelligent conclusion.

Keep in mind also that the countries which are relaxing the regulations concerning children are in a massively better shape than Ireland when it comes to the capacity of their health systems. Take a look to Switzerland, Austria, etc. We simply cannot compare their capacity to react to ours, it is on a whole different level.

I think it is very unfair to draw the conclusion that the government are putting this topic on low priority. It has to be top priority in getting us back to a version of normal. All of us parents clearly want to see movement on this topic, but I am not going to expect anyone to pull a rabbit out of a hat either.

shesty

It is very early days yet for this data, I agree. I wouldn't be reliant on it as yet, but I think it is one to watch, as it slowly growing.

This may not intentionally be low priority, but it still doesn't seem to even register that children are an issue. I think that is really the problem for many parents - not even an acknowledgement that childcare is going to cause huge problems for many.

kandr10

This article from 2 days ago reports a study done in Germany I believe, which is backed up by data from China. It’s says that children would likely have the same if not higher viral load as adults. Clearly there’s no consensus. As long as that is the case I’m happier for them to err on the side of caution.
https://www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/children-as-likely-to-spread-coronavirus-as-adults-says-scientist

shesty

Fair enough.

Has anyone heard from creches that won't be reopening?I do know of one myself, an aquaintance whose creche has contacted to say they won't be reopening, can't afford it after this prolonged shutdown I believe. Bit worried about our own preschool/afterschool, although they say they will be back.