Early Childhood Protection in Australia - Essay Example

Early Childhood Protection in Australia Your name Name of University “Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future”. Kennedy (1961, p. 63). With this guiding principle, every country struggles to empower its children through different intervention measures. In Australia, for instance, there are different types of child care services governed by the Children Services Regulation Charter (Butlin, et al., 2007). They include long day care, Before School Care, Occasional Care, After School Care, Family Day Care, Vacation Care and In Home Care (Friendly, et al., 2008). Owing to the complexity of the service, the government as well as the corporate world is involved in different projects. Some are partnerships while others are owned solely, either by the government or by these corporate outfits. This phenomenon of child care burst alive in 1840 in France. Since then, it has spread to cover quite a number of states in the world. This paper seeks to explore one of the types of child care services in Australia: Occasional Care Service. It will delve into its origin, historical development and reasons for establishment with intimate reference to political, economic, social And Cultural Facets. Occasional Child Care, according to Butlin, et al (2007), is the service that provides flexible service care for children from birth to school going age on a regular sessional or irregular basis often on ad hoc basis. The service is unique in respect of the way it tackles issues concerning emergencies and unpredictable business appointments. Owing to this, the perspective of flexibility is very key because the service providers are compelled to work under the conditions of the customer. Most parents prefer this because they can access this at any time. The service providers, therefore, as Clausen (2008) puts it, have tried to tailor make the service so as to fit the consumers. The nature of the service dictates that the consumer needs to pay for all functions used. This dimension is to be explained later in this paper. The service, which became fully operational in Australia in 1984, has been embraced by many people as opposed to other child care services. The need to develop this service was jointly driven by the government and the community. The former needed to provide its citizens with services that a government needs to provide while the latter’s need for the service due to governments up scaling of the workforce policy that sometimes requires workers full time made it necessary. Due to this demand, the service has experienced tremendous growth in the recent past (Butlin, et al., 2007). The service, currently offered in Australia by community organizations, on-profit organizations and local councils is funded in three different ways depending on the nature of the needs that they tackle: formula funded, on-formula funded and neighbourhood model. All these types of funding are operational in different circumstances. Butlin continues to say that the service, unlike others, is preferred because the customer is not tied to the provider since they can only get connected when they need the service. This saves the organization the agony of having to keep too many records fro this service. The government of Australia being the main player in implementation of this service because of the citizen service charter, had to undertake a survey in July 2007 to evaluate the service and the milestones it had taken this was due to management ailments that had rocked the situation. Because of the nature of the service once again, the government was only able to carry out the service, limiting its research to only government funded projects because the information that is provided by the other providers cannot be evaluated without having to bring forth other issues of bureaucracy and bits of company law intricacies. The survey was therefore partial because it did not provide a wholesome picture of the service. However, the outcomes of the study addressed a number of issues, major among them being the management strategies that have to be implemented so as to improve the service delivery. Another problem that came to being was the usual financing issue that comes all the time due to the budgetary allocation. Some service providers work on a very tight budget to an extent of having no contingency (Butlin, et al., 2007). Due to lack of funds, the service does not fully meet the criteria for which it was cut. The only source of funds that is constant and dependable makes it possible to plan for the only functions so critical, leaving other supportive functions. The nature of the service also allows it to work only for a maximum of five hours that is from 10 am to 2 pm. The parents can only access it for those hours. The service, also, is divided into two functions, depending on the reason for need of the service. It can be provided as a walk in service or as a booking service. The services providers limit the number of walk ins that can be provided in a day because they can oversubscribe owing\g to the fact that the walk ins are not always planned for. Another type of service that Butlin et al. (2007) identifies is the booking service, more convenient, superior even. It is convenient because the customers have time to study the company that offers the service and the company gets time to plan fro the service. Some of the main reasons for variatrtion in the type of service needed are the nature of ones schedule for instance; other schedules are work related while others are non work related. Work related concerns that correspond to bookings include promotions to positions that need more time in work, change of work shifts, need for working overtime to earn more, moonlighting and even respite. All these warrant planning for occasional care that caters for that time when the concerned is not at home. Non work related reasons that raise need for this service whose main objective is to provide quality and equitable service to all people in terms of child care are refresher courses, extra courses in colleges, respite where the parents want to break from the daily monotony and shopping which usually happens sat the end of a working period. These non work related reasons are the most compelling and can make the customer desperate fro the service mostly. The occasional care is provide fore the following reasons generally, according to Erel et al. (2000): emergency situations that especially happen to people at workplaces, medical or other appointments that are sometimes inevitable, shopping errands especially fro family people, respite fro parents or grandparents, shift of work relations and job sharing. The people who have come to like the service in the recent Australian situation include parents, grandparents and relatives, both blood and foster. However, a trend about foster parents has been noticed whereby the fosters cannot allow their children to be in these institutions. The socioeconomic dimension that sets in however, is the affordability of the service. Low income earners may not be able to pay for the service and therefore settle for other ways that may be detrimental to the children’s welfare. Due to the historical arrangements and the always inevitable political issue, the occasional service is only available in certain areas while other people may not be able to organize for it. The main issues that come up against the rural folk include the infrastructural problems that are commonplace in those areas, the capital outlay for starting the project and the issue of management in those rural areas. The evolutionary nature of different services due to changes in trends has also affected this sector and more specifically the occasional care. Because of the economic downturn that has hit the world in the last decade or so, the demand for this service has increased because the people are more sensitive and responsive to ways of providing for their families, which makes them start looking for an extra coin that warrants occasional care. The same economical reason has also led to the increase in price fro the service. The value of currency has gone down making it necessary for the service providers to increase their rates, sometimes unproportionately, a factor those impacts negatively on the consumers of the service. Clausn (2008) says that because of the changes in the technological trends, the service providers have had to increase their expenditure so as to put up more technologically advanced infrastructure like playing fields. The service providers have also been forced to employ tech savvy staff so as to make sure that good service is offered to the consumers. Consumers are also getting choosy because they can only settle for the service providers that are in line with the most recent and technologically advanced service. The political dimension can also not be underrated. This is because, Australia being a multi party democracy, inasmuchas the service seems to be small as compared to other concerns; it also receives attention because some parties have it on the agenda as part of their campaign strategy. This has led to a significant development in this service. A revolution has also occurred in this industry owing to the competition that it is exposed to. Because firms are competing against trends, the industry is growing very fast to an extent of improving the quality of service being provided. The services are now better than ever and the customers are reaping from it. This has encouraged investment in this service area as compared to other areas that are less popular among the people. The services that are currently offered in these institutions include feeding, psychological therapy, and role play for able children and language teaching upon demand from the parents or guardians. What usually happens nowadays is that the services can get as personalized as ever because each parent wants their children to acquire a specific skill or to get a particular service. This makes it a bit hard for the service providers but then they are able to make arrangements after studying the trends. Butlin, et al (2007) notes that although the service seems of great importance to the consumer, they need to do their research well because the services offered are different and can affect their children negatively. Careful knowledge is therefore desired, especially for nongovernmental institutions whose main aim might be only money or just business. Kearns (2010) proposes that the government has also to be careful in regulating the market to allow for better services always. All in all, looking at the situation in Australia and the value of the child as outlined in the children’s act in various countries world over, there is clear indication that occasional care is the fastest growing service in this line. The service should therefore be taken seriously in all countries because of its convenience and flexibility. References Butlin, A.D., et al (2007). Occasional Care: Flexible child care for Australian families. Final Report, Amity Management Consulting Group. Clausen, M. (2008). The Provision of Occasional Childcare: the Neighbourhood House Model. Melbourne: Association of Neighbourhood Houses and Learning Centres. Erel, O., Oberman, Y. & Yirmiya, N. (2000). Maternal versus nonmaternal care and seven domains of children's development. Psychol Bull 126 (5), pp.727–47. Friendly, Martha; McCain, Margaret (March 7, 2008). "Child care must serve kids not corporate shareholders". The Star (Toronto). Retrieved October 1, 2011. Kearns, K, (2010). Birth to Big School (2nd ed). Australia: Pearson. Kate Ryan. (2006). Family Daycare Australia. [ONLINE] Available at: [Accessed 11 October, 2011]. Read More