In a bid to win the election Kevin Rudd annouced that as the Labor leader he would add an extra 260 child care centres accross australia and give back almost 50% of child care costs to families. This would be a fantastic step for childcare, he also stated that the quality of care would improve with more people studying childcare would be rebated. Read more

The Australian child obesity problem is only getting worse and we need to start doing something about it now. The following articles state that contributing factors lead to the childhood problem.
Ethnicity, obesity link.
Poverty, race link to childhood obesity problem.

As child carers what can we do to help with the problem?
We would love your opinion in our discussion forum.

An American study has shown that putting your child into care early in infancy may lower the risk of  asthma. WebMD reports on the article that placing your child into care before three months of age may help with reducing the risk of asthma.
Read more here

Australian billionaire businessman, Eddy (Edmund) Groves, has approached Canadian daycare centres in the hopes of expanding his billionaire child care business. The former milkman turned billionaire has centres in Australia, New Zealand and the United States to date.
Read The Star report here
What do think about ‘Fast Eddy’, has he made quality child care centres?
Post your opinion

A report from The Age states that a Bureau of Statistics survey of the Australian labour force has found that 233,000 Australians are out of work because they are caring for their child.

The survey also found that of these people, 97,600 were not working because of issues related to child care.

This has started the usual political bickering on both sides, with the government stating that this is a good thing, as parents have the choice of staying at home and looking after their children.

The opposition thinks that “There’s nothing choosy about wanting accessible, affordable and high-quality care for our children.”

Discussion on this is available in our child care discussion forum

The Labor government has announced a new plan to introduce a ‘play based learning” scheme to educate four year old children. If the Labor party wins into government, they will bring in the $450 million dollar education scheme that will see all children of four years old allocated up to 15 hours of early childhood education a week.

The scheme will focus on preparing the children for the education system and is welcomed by the child care association, as extra funding to long day care services will improve the quality of care.

Sources:

• Report from the Age ‘Labor launches ‘education revolution’
• ABC Lateline transcript of interview with Labor’s Jenny Macklin

Want to discuss this? Go to our forum on this story.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports, the state government rejected taskforce recommendations for a new staff to child ratio in child care centres. Despite the report reccommending that the ratio drop to 1:4 instead of the current 1:5, several taskforce members (representing private childcare providers) stated that staff shortages and wage increases would cause many small child care centres to close.

If you have a comment on this, please discuss it in our forum topic – Report into Child Care Centre Ratios

The fantastic series Life at One is to be shown on ABC Television again this year. The program follows the life of eleven one year old children in their day to day life, looking at the different environment and cultures the children live in.

As the ABC Website states:

The LIFE series aims to unlock the secrets of child development to find out what gives a child the best chance at life. As these 11 young Australians grow up we’ll witness their lives, we’ll test their progress and discover what makes us who we are. Join us for the beginning of an extraordinary and groundbreaking journey.

Check it out, screening on ABC2

• 7pm and 9.30pm, Sunday 21 January, 2007
• 7pm and 9.30pm, Sunday 28 January, 2007