Childcare waiting lists growing in south-west, inquiry told

Anita Rank, the former chairwoman of Regional Development Australia Barwon South West, said in a submission to the early childhood education and care inquiry the lack of childcare was depleting the region's workforce.

"While there are many reasons driving women's workforce participation, access to childcare is recognised as a significant factor, particularly in the Barwon South West region and even more so in remote towns such as Apollo Bay and Hawkesdale," she said.

"The largest employing sectors for women are healthcare and social assistance, retail trade, education and training, accommodation and food services, all experiencing significant workforce shortages."

Ms Rank said waiting lists for childcare in Glenelg Shire were growing.

"The children's services team in Glenelg Shire continues to experience staffing shortages and high numbers of enrolments for all programs on offer, across all centres in the shire," she said.

"Workforce shortages and growing waiting lists present as the key issues and are intrinsically interconnected.

"Current staffing shortages are resulting in growing waiting lists and as of May 18, 2023 there are approximately 173 children on waiting lists for our council-managed early years programs."

The Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV) said in its submission the state government should support the extension of in-home care.

"If supported, strengthened, and expanded, these existing models have the potential to provide unique, low-cost, flexible options for vulnerable families," the submission said.

"They are already in place across Australia and provide significant social, economic and human capital benefits to local communities."

The MAV submission comes after South West Healthcare chief executive officer Craig Fraser told The Standard last week the health organisation was considering a similar solution.

"We are also looking at offering in-home childcare so that we can proactively address these additional challenges for our own staff," Mr Fraser said.

Earlier this year, The Standard reported the city's childcare shortage was showing no signs of easing.

A number of child care centres are experiencing staff shortages.

In 2022, The Standard reported this was forcing some centres to reduce the number of placements they could offer children.

A shortage of qualified staff both in the south-west and across the nation is fuelling the "workforce crisis" as educators leave the profession for new industries and centre directors try to recruit, with little success.

Thrive by Five, a campaign to make the system high quality and accessible, says the crisis is jeopardising access to high-quality care in the critical early years and when families needed support.

"There is a workforce crisis in the early childhood education and care sector, with thousands of job vacancies, high staff turnover and inadequate pay and conditions for educators," its director Jay Weatherill said.

The inquiry's draft report recommends accelerated qualification courses for child care workers as one possible solution to address staff shortages.

"Governments should provide modest financial incentives to universities to facilitate trials of innovative approaches for providing initial teacher education to early childhood teachers," the draft report states.

It also recommends making changes to childcare to reduce out of pocket costs for families.