Parent-led nurseries: Are they the answer to affordable childcare?

The Start-Up: A new approach is gaining traction as early years provision becomes increasingly expensive and over-subscribed

Parents and children build garden furniture ready for the opening of a parent-led nursery in Deptford, South London (Supplied)

When Debbie Myrie had her first child six years ago, she was amazed to find that parent meet-ups weren’t always the most welcoming places for mums.

But Myrie isn’t the type to do nothing. So she started a WhatsApp group for friendly parents she met and began posting whenever she found a playgroup or a meet-up that she liked. In time, the WhatsApp group evolved into a Facebook group, which evolved into a playgroup.

Now, Myrie is on the board of directors to start a parent-led nursery in Deptford, south London, offering high-quality childcare at an affordable price for local families, designed and delivered by parents themselves.

“A lot of parent-led nurseries are very middle class,” Myrie says. “We want our nursery to be more diverse.”

Myrie is one of 20 parents working with the New Economics Foundation (NEF), Coram Family Childcare and the Peabody Housing Association Community Foundation to open the new nursery on Albyn Road in Deptford in October.

The parents have set out to create a place where people who are suffering from postnatal depression and other mental health problems feel welcome, or where mothers who don’t speak English as a first language are included and supported. “If you just talk to someone for five minutes it can brighten their day,” Myrie says. “Especially if you have depression.”

Parent-led nurseries are a fairly new phenomenon in the UK. They are gaining traction as early years provision becomes increasingly expensive and over-subscribed for parents. The UK is one of the most expensive places for childcare in the world, yet childcare workers are some of the lowest paid workers in society.

The government has tried to address this problem by offering 15 to 30 hours of free childcare to parents. Yet 17 per cent of childcare providers in England’s poorest areas are facing closure due to underfunding, while nurseries are charging parents for “extras”, such as nappies and food, according to a policy briefing by NEF.

Poor childcare provision has been shown to have a knock-on effect on inequality. By the time a child is five, there is already a 40 per cent attainment gap between disadvantaged kids and their classmates because of the absence of flexible, affordable childcare, NEF says.

Co-op and parent-led nurseries offer parents and their children a different relationship, according to Lucie Stephens, head of co-production at NEF. Stephens has spoken to many parents like Myrie who feel “locked out” of nursery, with little connection to other parents and children. She says the dominance of privately-owned nurseries and, increasingly, so-called super chains of nurseries that are run for shareholder profit, means that parents are often seen as customers.

“Alongside being more affordable, due to not being profit driven, co-op and parent-led nurseries aim to be shaped by and respond to their local community, creating a family of families,” Stephens says.

Grasshoppers in the Park in East London has been parent-led since it was founded by parents in 2000, following the closure of three nurseries by the local council. The nursery expects all parents to contribute in some way, from fundraising to washing things over the weekend. Some spend time with the children for a day each week, giving them access to discounted fees.

“Having parents around one a week is extremely beneficial to the staff,” says Luciana Talpo, who has managed the nursery since 2011. “And it’s good for parents to be involved in their children’s education, to see what’s happening and to see how it works here.”

Aysan Alba saw a post on Facebook and started attending meetings for the new parent-led nursery at Albyn Road. “I’m a teacher and the thought of me going back to school to work and leaving [my son] was awful. I had so many sleepless nights worrying about it,” she says. “At a parent-led nursery, you have the option to volunteer and work with your children.”

Many parents face this dilemma. They need childcare that caters for long hours and commutes, even though shorter periods of high-quality care have been shown to generate a better outcome for children. Alba says that childcare at private nurseries can be difficult to find – and afford – for more than just mornings or afternoons and for more flexible schedules. “It’s a massive issue where modern-day working is more flexible, but nurseries haven’t really caught up,” she says. “Parent-led nurseries will mean hopefully they catch up with the flexibility of working.”

There are currently only a handful of parent-led nurseries in the UK, compared to countries like New Zealand, Sweden and the US where the tradition is better established. But NEF is working towards establishing a viable model in the UK, including the removal of business rates for nurseries and extra support for nurseries that are under threat of closure to become parent-led or employee-owned.

“Our extensive financial modelling shows that this approach to childcare can be financially sustainable, but there is a set-up period when the costs of running the nursery are higher than the income generated from fees,” Stephens says. She advocates for social investment to support nurseries during planning and opening.

“You need to get the parents together, then find a premises and fundraise: there’s a lot of work to start from scratch,” Talpo tells parents and people who call up Grasshoppers in the Park to find out how it can be done. “People are finding childcare very expensive and not very accessible, so they are trying to do their own thing.”

In Deptford, the families who are working towards opening the parent-led nursery are already developing a close bond. Tanisha Wong takes her daughter Marie Kamara, now just six months, to stay and play sessions in the mornings where the children take part in face-painting and gardening and parents can talk about how they want the nursery to be run. “Deptford didn’t have much of a community spirit before, especially for younger single parents like me,” she says. “One day, I met someone there who said it was their first time speaking to someone they can relate to. It’s a good place to make friends – and it has a spirit of being in it together.”