FDCA responds to tired rhetoric

Family Day Care Australia (FDCA) was disappointed by the stories run across various news outlets over the weekend.

This coverage regarding a small group of unscrupulous 'operators' continues to unfairly taint the reputation of our sector, which is made up of fantastic educators and services that go above and beyond to support families and provide high quality outcomes for children all across Australia.

It is disappointing that the media, regulatory authorities and the governments, to the detriment of the sector, continue to use the family day care sector as a vehicle to spruik budgetary savings from as far back as far as 2015. This is a matter that we have raised with regulators and we have made it clear that the time for this rhetoric over.

FDCA CEO, Andrew Paterson spoke with the publication and raised this along with other concerns during the conversation. Andrew also made it clear that there is still a very strong demand for family day care and that family day care continues to play a crucial role in the ECEC sector due to the unique qualities it can provide Australian families.

Mr Paterson stated that while FDCA supports the removal of unscrupulous operators from the sector, services need to be supported by regulators and governments in order to be able to recruit educators and grow the sector.

As the sector's national peak we have recently met with regulators and governments across the country as part of our Sector Viability Strategy to discuss matters such as this in order to ensure a strong and sustainable future for the sector.

We are aware that the source for this story was the NSW Government and we will be addressing these matters directly with them.

We will continue work hard to share positive stories across Australia about family day care and also encourage all of our members to share their stories with us, so that we can distribute them to media outlets.

Family day care services and educators provide high quality early childhood education and care in a natural home environment that allows children to form strong bonds with passionate educators in small group settings. The ability for family day care to offer this type of environment is what makes family day care the natural choice in early childhood education and care for thousands of Australian families.

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