SAVE OUR OUT OF SCHOOL CLUBS

Parents and Children across the country are in DANGER of losing Out of School Childcare. The PVI Childcare sector is in a critical situation. Please sign our petition to demand that Gillian Keegan Secretary of State for Education and Claire Coutinho the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing) at the Department for Education, provides funding to our Out of School provisions to support our hard working tax paying parents/guardians to ensure the long term sustainability of Before and After School and Holiday care for the children of working and vulnerable families.  

Our Out of School and Holiday Club sector both locally and nationally provides ESSENTIAL wrap around care for families which underpins our economy by supporting Parents/guardians to work, study and care for vulnerable children. The time has come for the Government to stop looking at our services as businesses, and start recognising that we provide one of the most ESSENTIAL services that underpins the back bone of our countries work force. Our ESSENTIAL services has always faced many challenges that we have raised to and supported but now and our long term sustainability is under a very serious threat with many settings reporting that there is a danger of possible closures. The time has also come for the government to invest some of our Parents/Guardians hard earned taxes back into the ESSENTIAL Services that supports them to work to pay their taxes.  

Many of these ESSENTIAL services remained open throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic which enabled Key Workers to continue to work and vulnerable children to be cared for, with all providers returning in June 2020 while the country where still in Lockdown. Many Parents were rightly cautious of their children returning and our sector did not make charges to retain places. In an effort to keep our children safe we had to put (and not mix) children into bubbles, this brought with it the need to provide additional staff and PPE which came at high cost, with a loss of income, staff not being furloughed and next to no financial support from the Government. Coupled with this our sector is also under threat due to the ever increasing cost of staffing, utilities, business rates and of course the cost of living crisis. Our sector has always been mindful of not placing these increasing costs back to our families who we know are also struggling, but we fear its high increases to fees or closures. 

Again we are calling for Gillian Keegan Secretary of State for Education and Claire Coutinho the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing) at the Department for Education, and the Government to provide urgent financial assistance to support our ESSENTIAL Out of School provisions, to help us remain open and sustain our sector, so we can continue to enable of Parents/Guardians to work, study, train, care for others or have respite.  

Please join us by signing our petition to demand urgent funding to SAVE OUR OUT OF SCHOOL AND HOLIDAY CLUBS and PROVIDE FUNDING FOR OUR FUTURE AND LONG TERM SUSTAINABILITY. We ask that you share this with providers, parents and your local Member of Parliament to lend their support to our plight.