Temporary local childcare solutions (contingency planning!)

[Tobyr1]

Hi everyone

I'm local (Derwent Grove) but writing here about Koru Kids who I work for. Many of us at Koru Kids are parents hence why we've set up a childcare service.

In these crazy times, we understand that all of our childcare arrangements are going to get disrupted if they're not already. I've had to tell my little ones' grandparents to stay at their home which means I'm down two days of care already. If nursery shuts we're really going to struggle to work from home with the kids without an alternative.

So we've got TWO suggestions. (The first is completely free, the second is a paid service for complete transparency!):

1. Find local families to share childcare with. If you don't know a family with similar temporary childcare needs to you and haven't been able to find them through EDF, then try our free Family Finder here: https://www.korukids.co.uk/content/baby-toddler/share-your-childcare

The idea is that you find a local family in your street or nearby and then you take turns looking after each others children. It means you can minimise external exposure but also between two families have a productive work week. Note that you shouldn't do this at all of course if you are showing any signs of virus in your family, and you should only do this with one family, and make sure you follow all NHS guidance. It's a hyper local, minimal exposure free childcare option for those of us who need to continue working and can't take lots of time off to look after our children.

2. Second option is our short term, immediate start nannies. https://www.korukids.co.uk/content/baby-toddler/immediate-start-nannies We'll take care of all of the admin and get you set up as soon as you need. With shorter notice periods that normal and immediately available, our nannies can fill a short term nursery closure for example.

Hope you all have good contingency plans in place! Let me know if there's any other ideas or help we at Koru Kids might be able to provide.

Toby