Residential houses are used to provide childcare services for infants and toddlers under the age of three, and the number of persons in care does not exceed five

【Solve the worries of childbearing families (4)】How can the "small but beautiful" family childcare point live up to the "trust"?

Reporter Wang Weiyan

Read the prompts

Family childcare points provide a variety of options for families who are just in need of childcare. Driven by relevant policies, family childcare centers are developing in the direction of standardization and standardization, but there are still blockages in sustainable development, qualification compliance, and inclusiveness.

Not long ago, who brought her 2-year-old daughter, set off a turmoil in the home of Beijing Bao's mother Zhao Huan (pseudonym). Zhao Huan and her husband are busy with work, and after the birth of their daughter, they have been taken care of by their mother-in-law. Recently, the mother-in-law is not in good health, in order to reduce the burden on the elderly, the couple set their sights on the childcare market.

"Please ask my sister-in-law to come to the door, the family can't live open." It is a long distance to go to a childcare institution, which is inconvenient for pick-up. After weighing it up, Zhao Huan sent her daughter to the family nursery point in the community.

At present, family childcare centers that use residential houses to provide full-day care, half-day care, timed care, temporary childcare and other childcare services for infants and toddlers under the age of 3, and receive no more than 5 people, are providing diversified options for families like Zhao Huan who have just needs childcare.

In March this year, the National Health Commission issued the Measures for the Management of Family Childcare Sites (Trial) (Draft for Comments) (hereinafter referred to as the Draft for Comments), which puts forward requirements for family childcare in terms of average student size, filing conditions, and caregivers, and promotes the standardization and standardization of family childcare.

However, the reporter found in the investigation that at present, family childcare points still have blocking points in sustainable development, qualification compliance, inclusiveness and other aspects, and "small but beautiful" family childcare points still have some way to go to meet parents' expectations of "professionalism and excellence".

Restrictions on the upper limit of care and the ratio of care make it difficult to make a profit

In early June, the Xinchao Jiajia Family Nursery Center, co-founded by Shi Xinyu and friends, welcomed the first batch of 6 kindergarten children. Located in the South District of Swan Bay in Chaoyang District, Beijing, this family nursery area covers an indoor area of 5 square meters and an outdoor area of 130 square meters, and the childcare time is from 400 am to 8 pm every day, which can be extended to 5 pm according to parents' needs.

Shi Xinyu calculated an account for the reporter: At present, the monthly childcare fee for each infant is 8800~12580 yuan, excluding rent, water and electricity, salaries and other expenses, barely achieving a balance of income and expenditure. To operate better, they need to expand their business by holding parent-child activities on weekends and offering early education classes.

Feng Zhicong, co-founder of Jimi Zhijia, a family-type childcare institution, said that the restrictions on the upper limit of childcare and the ratio of care make it difficult for family childcare sites to achieve profitability.

Feng Zhicong's organization has more than 60 franchise points across the country, and most of the operators are Baoma. These nursery sites are generally located in residential buildings below the 3rd floor, with an area of about 150 square meters, receiving 18~20 children, hiring 4~5 teachers, and achieving a certain profit every month.

It is understood that this is also a more common operation plan for institutional family care on the market. However, according to the requirements of the draft for comments, each caregiver can care for a maximum of three infants and toddlers, and the number of caregivers should not exceed the limit, these childcare sites are clearly "excessive".

Getting a compliance "pass" is a challenge

In interviews, many parents said that looking at business qualifications is an important indicator for them to judge the quality of children in family nursery points. In fact, how to get the "pass" for compliant operation is also a practical problem that plagues family childcare point operators.

The Draft mentions that family childcare sites should comply with the relevant regulations of local governments on the registration of residential buildings as business premises, and apply for registration with the local market supervision department in accordance with the law. The name of the registration should indicate the word "childcare", and specify "family childcare services" in the business scope (or business scope).

Shi Xinyu previously consulted with the industry and commerce department of Chaoyang District in Beijing and learned that there is still a lack of specific rules for the business license for family childcare in the nature of residence.

One alternative is to convert the dwelling into a commercial property after obtaining the unanimous consent of the relevant owners in the community, and carry out industrial and commercial registration through "residential to commercial".

However, the Civil Code clarifies that the use of residential premises cannot be changed as long as one of the interested owners does not agree. "It's too hard to get all the owners to agree." Shi Xinyu said.

In addition to the business license, the current filing requirements for family childcare centers in terms of hygiene evaluation, professional qualification certificates, catering services, etc. are not clear, and Shi Xinyu's childcare center has to refer to the standards of large-scale childcare institutions for "high-fitting" construction.

Shi Xinyu noted that at the end of 2021, Shandong Province implemented provincial-level family childcare pilots in 13 urban areas, of which Yantai and other places moderately lowered the filing threshold, and some family childcare points have already obtained the filing receipt of childcare institutions. "I hope that the detailed rules of relevant policies can be issued and implemented as soon as possible."

There are still deficiencies in price and quality assurance

By the end of 2021, China had 3.2 nurseries for infants under the age of 03 per 4,5 population, which is still far from the target of <>.<> at the end of the <>th Five-Year Plan period. In the future, can family childcare centers achieve inclusiveness and fill the gap in childcare services?

Shi Yi, an associate researcher at the Chinese and Development Research Center, previously proposed in an interview with the media that there are three criteria for judging inclusive childcare services: first, the price is affordable, the second is convenient and accessible, and the third is the quality is guaranteed.

Family childcare points at the doorstep are naturally convenient and accessible, but they are still insufficient in terms of affordable price and guaranteed quality.

Feng Zhicong analyzed that institutional family childcare points are usually priced according to the operating costs, taking his institution as an example, the average monthly childcare fee in Guangzhou and Shenzhen is 5000~6000 yuan, and in Beijing about 8000 yuan. At present, the state provides subsidies of 1,<> yuan to inclusive childcare institutions according to the standard of each new childcare place, but there is no relevant subsidy policy for family childcare centers, "it is not only small in scale, but also affordable to the people, which is indeed difficult".

He suggested that family childcare centers should be given certain operating subsidies, or reduce operating costs through incentive subsidies and purchase of services, so that they have the opportunity to become an integral part of the inclusive childcare service supply system.

During the interviews, parents were generally very concerned about the activities and courses of early education in family childcare centers, and hoped that childcare centers could provide "professional and sophisticated" care services.

In this regard, Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Education Sciences, said that family childcare points not only have "care", but also "education", which requires financial support and a professional talent team to support. In the long run, to achieve the "trust", it is necessary to further strengthen the training of childcare talents and improve the relevant training and certification system.

In terms of promoting the development of family childcare, some places are also making active attempts, for example, Jinan, Shandong Province has built the "Quanxin Care" family childcare point care project to benefit the people, and the municipal childcare service industry association has completed the qualification training of family childcare point practitioners, and special training for family childcare organizers and practitioners; In October 2022, four departments of Zhejiang Province jointly released the pilot work plan for inclusive childcare basic public services, and 10 counties (cities and districts) were included in the pilot areas, and the construction of family childcare centers is one of the work contents. (Daily Worker)