Sutherland Shire council is about to scrap its family day care services. 

Family day care educators were blindsided by the announcement last week, which will affect 16 popular centres in Cronulla, Miranda, Yowie Bay, Kirrawee, Jannali, Sylvania, Engadine, Bangor and Barden Ridge.

It has the potential to increase demand and contribute to already growing waiting lists at other council centres & private childcare centres. FDC primarily caters for the under 2’s, which require the highest child to educator ratio of one educator per four children and as a result spots are already incredibly competitive with long waiting lists. 

A business paper has been put to council to abandon FDC because it’s not as profitable as council’s other larger centres. But it’s an essential community service - especially for children that might not cope as well in larger environments - and council should be investing more in childcare, not less. 

The council’s children’s services department says it will help transition educators to private practices, but this requires added workload on existing educators and as a result quite a few are considering resigning, retiring or retraining in another occupation. 

It could also mean higher fees for parents or higher levies on educators.

It’s really hard to find a good day care in the Shire & parents trust council centres because their educators have an excellent reputation, and they can be confident they comply with the highest government safety standards.

Sutherland Shire Councillors will make a final call on family day care on Monday 31st October (in 3 weeks) but it’s expected to be in favour of abandoning the program, which has been running successfully for over 40 years. 

Sign the petition to let them know that’s not ok!