Free nursery places

[naartjies]

Hi can someone please point me in the right direction.
I had a family that have just told me that they are going to use a nursery instead of me as it will be cheaper.. I have been on tenderhooks for 6 weeks now as they were waiting on completion of their new house before they signed contracts. :(
Now I know I offer a different service but is there anything we can do so that I can qualify for the free 15 hours a week on behalf of the parents,and if so is it worth it.

many thanks

[tracey36]

if you joing the childrens come first network you can become accredited and be able to offer free nursery places 2.5 hours per day i think

[Toothfairy]

To be able to offer the free nursey childcare places, you need to be an accredited childminder. To become accredited you need to join your Childminding Network and be assessed.

Not so easy in some parts of the country....

I am in Kent and desperately need to become accredited as I have 2 mindees who will leave me for nursery unless I can offer the free spaces.
Although my network have spaces they are only offering them out to CM's in certain postcodes. As there are already a couple of accredited CM's around my postcode they will not offer me one of the places!!!!

I am in battle with them at the moment but I keep banging my head against a brick wall!

Good luck, also bear in mind it can take up to 12months to become accredited too.

[tashaleee]

It very much seems to be a 'postcode lottery' as to what you have to do and in which part of the country you are in as they are all different....

In my area you have to be on the network to become accredited and you have to have been minding for at least a year (cant remember the rest of the bits though - you may need an nvq 3 in my area). There are very few accredited childminders in my area simply because if you become accredited you actuallty earn less than you do normally.... am still trying to figure out the logic on that one :mad:

[Ali56]

If you are accredited then if you change your fees for those children to a daily rate then you can offset the govt allowance against some of it, then you dont lose out. this is what my CMDO suggested. hope that helps:)

Ali x