UTS Child Care Inc - Australia

Program

  • Type of Program: Multi purpose programs for children within a campus based environment
  • Age Served: Birth to 12 years
  • Funding Sources: University of Technology Sydney, UTS Union, Corporate, Federal and State funds
  • Presenter: Deb Teh and Leo Prendergast
  • Address: Kids Campus UTS Eton Rd
    Lindfield, New South Wales, Australia 2070
  • Telephone: 02- 9514 5131 and 02- 95141415
  • Fax: c/o Kids Campus 02- 95145550
  • Email: [email protected]
  • Web Site: http://www.childcare.uts.edu.au

Program Purpose

To enhance the access of families to work or study within UTS, by ensuring a highly flexible high quality of developmentally appropriate care for children within this community.

Program Description

UTS Child Care Inc, manages 3 children's services: Long day care,(180 places), After school care (30 places), Vacation care (100 places) and Evening care. In order to meet our purpose the organisation has developed a range of strategies aimed at:

  • Increasing, flexibility of use for families, including: funding options for reduced fees for staff and students: allowing student parents to drop out of child care over non semester periods; allowing students and staff to change enrolment patterns each semsester; the opportunity for both regular and casual enrolments including use of extra child care by students at peak study periods.
  • Increasing staff quality through better staff retention. By designing our Enterprise Agreements with over award salaries and other positive conditions for staff, we have been able to attain higher staff retention than industry norms. Other staff supports include in-house training, weekend retreats and flexible rosters.
  • Financial viability, which includes expansion of services to maximise financial opportunities, the cross subsidising of popular services with more costly programs. Subsidies from the University and the Union are also important contributors to the overall financial position ensuring students have affordable fee levels.
  • Staff awareness. The dilemma of flexible service delivery is that the program disruption caused by higher levels of flexibility can result in lower quality of child care. To overcome this the staff profile includes more staff and more highly trained staff than are required by licensing standards.

Most Unique Program Feature

One of the most unique features of the programs is the ability directors have to implement creative management strategies at service level without lengthy organisational barriers, including innovative development of new programs for after school care, free child care for students during graduation and enrolment periods, and Vacation Care. We have supported development of the broader child care sector by senior staff being active in peak oragnisations, including the opportunity to develop a Web site for families of the Northern Sydney region (www.childlink.com.au) through a government grant for community education, as well as development of our own Web site. Students and staff have support with fees via special funding arrangements. Ordinary community members pay a full cost recovery fee for child care, while staff and students pay a discounted rate funded by University sources Other sponsorship arrangements with local businesses nearby the University have provided staff of those businesses the opportunity to access sponsored child care places.

Edited by Michael Kalinowski