Draft Childcare Strategy

We are pleased to launch for public consultation this, the full draft version of the Executive’s Childcare Strategy.

The present draft builds upon the work now well underway in relation to the first phase of the Strategy, which we launched in 2013. That first phase aimed to address the most pressing childcare needs brought to our attention through extensive survey research and during an earlier round of consultation with parents, children and childcare stakeholders. More low cost school age childcare places, more childcare places for children with a disability and better and more accessible information on available childcare services were among the principal needs identified. We believe we have gone some distance towards addressing those needs by, for example, creating or sustaining, to date, more than 2,000 school age childcare places, and by enhancing the childcare information available through the Family Support NI website.