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We are open 24/7. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week thanks to the shop website.

But we weren’t open 24/7. The 24th of July 2020.

This is why.

After four months of lockdown in Leicester, not including an all too brief fortnight when non essential shops could open, and with a new local lockdown there remain practical and common sense barriers.

We are not alone, bars, cafes, hairdressers and restaurants remain closed, as they have since March.

But wait, shops like ours were told they could open again this week. When I say ‘told’ it was more like rumour and speculation within an information drought.

But there is another rub.

We ask. How can people visit a non essential shop if they should only take essential journeys? The people of Leicester have been told to stay at home. Working at home is the preference. A luxury many don’t have.

We should only travel to work if we cannot work at home. We should walk or cycle or drive. Avoid public transport.

One should only shop for essential supplies, or venture out for health appointments or exercise. People in surrounding areas have been told not to travel into the city. We should not leave it. Which is unenforceable advice it seems.

So, guess what? Most people have been sensible and headed that public health advice. That means the city centre has returned to its quietest once again.

The official advice has been clarified. You can only visit a non essential shop whilst on an essential journey.

So, we could open for the office workers that aren’t in town, the service industry workforce who are still at home, and the county folk who aren’t travelling in. But that doesn’t make much sense. Perhaps a passing jogger would pop in and buy a desk, for their home working, and carry it home? Maybe someone on their bike would like to purchase a dinner set and keep their fingers crossed it makes the perilous journey home?

It doesn’t seem likely. Instead, we will carry on building our online trading and deliveries, click and collect if that suits our customers, and on screen in store virtual shopping appointments. Our social media will continue to engage and excite our loyal customers. And we are very grateful for that. It’s been wonderful to see them on their doorsteps during local delivery rounds in the afternoons.

We eagerly await the relaxing of local lockdown, the return of the city’s vibrant cafe culture and our customers beginning to return to familiar routines and entering through our open doors.

We will be ready, 24/7.

We are used to the concept of workforce recruitment and retention strategies, but are you ready, willing and able to lead a migration strategy?

A migration strategy would support the workforce with their individual challenges arising from COVID-19 and do whatever possible to support them to stay in the sector, move to new or different roles and help the local market respond to the changing needs of children and families.  For now, and in the medium- and long-term futures.

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on our sector.  Families’ economic and social behaviours have changed over the past months, they continue to change now, and they will evolve further in the following weeks, months, and perhaps years.

Guidance and lockdown required settings to adhere to certain actions and manage their businesses differently.  As a result, providers have either closed and remained so, or closed and reopened, are preparing to open again in the autumn, or have remained open throughout.

Opening has been a combination of different types.  Through the early days of lockdown, partial opening catered for the children of keyworkers and vulnerable children.  Around 25% of settings were open and were used by around 10% of children that usually attended.  We noticed examples of how staff moved from closed settings to open ones to fill capacity and skills gaps, such as holding Paediatric First Aid.

Since then, and particularly after 1 June 2020, settings have gradually reopened places, and families have presented themselves at settings to use their funded and paid-for places.  Local lockdowns have become a reality and may affect other areas.  Wider reopening plans and the ambition to open all schools and settings for the beginning of autumn term in September 2020, offer a renewed focus and a new challenge for all.

The workforce has continued to be supported by early years funding being paid in full so far, and for the autumn term, and/or the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS or ‘furloughing’).  Finances are not easy, quite the opposite.  The phased return of staff into settings as demand increases and the CJRS ends (31 October 2020) will require a whole range of different business decisions and choices.  These will be difficult and dramatic for some.  This will include remodelling the workforce, some teams will reduce, some will go, some will increase.  All will need to change.

The risk to the sector is that valuable trained, qualified and experienced members of the workforce will leave their settings.  A migration strategy would look at ways in which individuals could be supported to stay in the sector.  How we can help with their career thinking, job choices, role maintenance, professional development and progression, or job switches to other parts of the early years sector.  For example, how many of the local workforce could move from group provision and into childminding or vice versa.  Will there be workers moving into or out of provision based in or run by a school?

Like early years settings and schools, need and demand from families has changed.  You may have noticed the DWP list getting bigger as Universal Credit claims balloon, and unemployment increases.  You may have noticed demand for 30 hours staying the same or changing, up or down, as family employment patterns are transformed.  It might be too early yet.  These dynamics will also drive provider and delivery model change through autumn and beyond.

The proportion of the different types of places in settings will shift around (0-2, 2, 3-4 whether funded or paid for).  Parents are taking a second look at their previous childcare use and developing new preferences for the future.  Are they looking at group provision rather than childminding or childminding to replace group provision?  There may also be a trend towards single setting use – stimulated by guidance, by schools or by family predilections.  There are big implications for out of school here this is something to keep on top of.  Each setting will need to look at their model, the offer and take-up and ensure staff meet these requirements.  With increases in two-year-old eligibility, a good example would be settings needing staff with experience of working with two-year-olds.  This could be a temporary or a long-term measure.  Whatever, it will benefit from a migration strategy.

One huge issue is the availability of the workforce.  We cannot have provision without the workforce.  They themselves are not immune to the economic, employment and social changes affecting the entire population.

Some of the workforce will not want to return.  Or their ability to work will have changed.  Their preferences for how they work, when they work, and what they want to do are shifting as well.  Some will not want to return after being furloughed.  These experiences will prompt retirements and career changes.  That is natural and to be expected.

The workforce have concerns about their own health and safety, their physical and mental wellbeing, and that of their households and extended families.  Working safely in a setting or school is one thing but returning home to their own family is a different consideration.

There are personal and professional preferences as to how PPE should or could be used, this can cause tension and anxiety.  For childminders, accepting people into their own home presents new risks.  They may want their homes back.  In contrast, workers currently working in group provision might decide they would prefer to work with smaller numbers of children in their homes.  Their own or their family’s employment and economic status could be impacted.  Other jobs or that of their partner’s could have increased, decreased or disappeared.

With phased reopening, new models of delivery, local lockdowns, and/or second waves, the workforce may struggle to reconcile work with their own school and childcare arrangements.  Practical availability and the sums might just not add up, resulting in a staff member leaving a setting and looking elsewhere.  We need to catch as many as we can at this moment.

At key times of change people decide to leave.  They may just feel they have done enough, or all they can, in the sector, in their role, or in their setting.  They may decide to move away from childminding after a few years as their children have grown.  Some may choose the option of redundancy.

We could easily lose people that we cannot afford to lose.  So what can we do about it?  How can you keep the workforce in the early years sector?  What actions can be taken to support them before they stay or they are lost temporarily and not forever?  Here are a few considerations for what could be in an EY workforce migration strategy:

1. Help settings manage and take their workforce decisions during reopening, restructuring and in managing furlough return.
2. Offer recruitment and retention training for setting leaders, that promotes employment flexibility, sustainability and scalability.
3. Promote new models of delivery and show settings how to break out of traditional ways of working, creating new types of employment in the process.
4. Help schools to change in ways that are sensitive to the local childcare market.  So they are aware of what is happening in the childcare market (families and providers), they change their models as required, they do so with consideration to the local PVI and use their local position properly, and foster effective local ‘business relationships in the sector’.
5. Share regular information about demand, need and preference changes in the local market so all business leaders understand what is happening to that and its effect on eligibility for two-year-olds, universal and 30 hours funding.
6. Provide a confidential and impartial career advice service for individuals working in the sector and at risk of leaving. With the aim of keeping them if at all possible, or helping them with career barriers, and short- to long-term development.
7. Be able to broker employment opportunities. Can you have a jobs board somewhere online?  Can people post what they want or what they have to offer?  How can you facilitate the sharing of information and connect practitioners to providers?  Like speed dating for work.
8. Develop networks or clusters of employment between settings, supporting more of the workforce to work safely across different settings, perhaps in hubs.
9. Support with fast-tracked registration changes with Ofsted so settings can change or open-up nimbly before it is too late.
10. Promote childminder recruitment and registration so numbers continue to be stable or grow in response to actual demand types and locations. Support group practitioners to transition into childminding and vice versa.

It was a working at home day yesterday.  You know the score, deliveries expected, some maintenance happening in the garden and a key document needing writing with a clear head and no distractions.  That was the plan, anyway.  Don’t really know how I managed to fit work in at all.

The rollercoaster of COVID-19 challenge and change is a familiar tale.  And things have been getting me down recently.  It’s fatigue I think, the effects of adrenaline and determination have waned somewhat.  They aren’t far away.  And I understand they aren’t a constant, they are dynamics that ebb and flow organically. 

People have noticed.

So, imagine my surprise and delight to receive a delivery of goodies, from a dear friend, a ‘local lockdown survival kit’ I was advised.  A reward for the hard work and for surviving the trials and tribulations of recent months.  Very gratefully received I have to say.  I was over the moon.

Then, a letter from a building society.  Dull one would expect.  Oh no, an admin error and an over-payment of a professional fee.  A refund due, with interest.  £500.  Thank you kindly!

Fast forward to early evening.  The local florist at the door.  A bouquet of flowers from the in-laws.  Something to cheer you up, you seemed a little down at the weekend!

What a day.  It felt like the universe had shifted in my favour.  To some degree.  I was thankful.

We all know the importance of celebrating mini-victories and valuing what we have during COVID-19.  I must admit the extended local lockdown has been traumatic and difficult on top of something that was already tough for three months prior to that.  We’re not through it yet.  But yesterday did feel like the beginning of a little bounce back.  I attached myself to the positive feelings of hope.  Thank you to those that made that happen.

This morning, something happened that rocked my confidence.  I knocked over Bhimsen.  Who, you may ask?  Bhimsen is considered in Nepal to be the god of trade and business.  It is also believed he has superhuman strength.  I have a Bhimsen made of stone sitting on my bedside table.  Sometimes you feel like you need all the luck you can muster.  It felt like a heart-in-the-mouth moment.  But fear not, he was still intact.  Best put him on the mantlepiece so he is safer, I thought.  I did.  And he is fine.

Later, when walking to work, a white feather descended from the sky in front of me, then encircled my head and shoulders, returning to float in front of my face.  What a comfort that was.  The sign of angelic energy.

It made me think about the power of symbolism, the need for resilience and the comfort that all sorts of signs offer us and how they help us through times of difficulty.  I ended the day having been told this afternoon’s two business proposals have been agreed and accepted.  Thank goodness some things are going well.

I’ve noticed better relationships between local authority early years teams and childcare providers as a result of the impact of COVID-19.  Every week, and increasingly so, LAs and providers are telling me that effective partnership working is making a real difference in finding a way through the current challenges and getting as ready as possible for a difficult future ahead.  We do need to work together better, and so if this is not the case in your area, what can you do about it?

For the past four months, I have spent a good proportion of each working week on screen in front of local authority early years teams and leaders, and early years providers and practitioners.  We have all been working out ways in which we can carry on with our vital services and together plan for an uncertain future ahead.

Time and again I see wonderful interactions and sharing of information with the common purpose of meeting the needs of children and families.  Long may this continue.  We have always needed to work in partnership.  The challenges of change, economics and new entitlements have required us to do just that over recent years.  At a time when the type and level of support LAs are able to offer has changed as well.  But just when we thought we had had a rough ride through 30 hours, and with Brexit ahead of us, the coronavirus has topped the lot when it comes to significant challenge.  Brokerage of places for children that need them and workforce support are both good reasons to collaborate.

The things I hear about include great interpersonal relationships and professional friendships arising from regular verbal contact.  Much of which was prompted by the need for weekly calls and contacts to collect data for DfE.  Government has turned its attention and concern to opening, closures and place capacity and use.  But more has been happening in these contacts.  Information, experiences and emotions are shared of lived experiences through this crisis.  We are a caring profession and there has been informal counselling, certainly listening, the sharing of emotions and the acknowledgement of them.  The pendulum has swung helpfully away from a reliance only on email and portal communications.  It is resource heavy and DfE has asked this continues to the end of September 2020 at least.

The provider and the practitioner experience should and must be a voice heard in any early years and childcare strategy.  And not just the loudest, more confident or biggest ones.  These contacts, and others, I think are allowing the other voices to be heard and included and considered.  I am told topics that were never talked about before are being readily discussed in a spirit of openness and honesty.  To some extent video conferencing, now people are getting used to it, has made this more accessible.

There is a negative side though.  These trials and tribulations do prompt anger and frustration and often this can manifest in attacks and criticism.   It is understandable, but it is regrettable.  Everyone needs to remember we are all doing whatever we can, to our best ability, and we all want the same outcomes in the end.  There are people at each end of communications.

Returning to the positives, many more council leaders and decision-makers are realising the true and indispensable value of early years and childcare as part of their learning, social, equalities and economic strategies.  We are a partner and a key stakeholder in this and local recovery.

I hear how local childcare sufficiency assessments (CSAs) are collecting much higher rates of provider returns.  Response rates to surveys about supply, demand, need and parental preferences are usefully healthier than of late.  These assessments are not only a statutory role of the LA, they are essential when they are used to drive and inform local childcare market management strategies.  Again, a statutory role of LAs in The Childcare Act (2016).  Never has there been a greater need for such research, strategy and market support and direction.

The dynamic range of change of use of our provision will be enormous as families’ circumstances are affected by the fall-out of this pandemic.  Eligibility for the two-year-old entitlement my increase hugely as unemployment rises and Universal Credit claims increase.  30 hours eligibility may fall, stay the same, or increase as parents’ employability changes in a multitude of ways.  Universal 15 hours may remain constant, but what about the demand for it as parents decide how and where they work or access services?  How will parents’ and providers’ views on single-use settings affect demand and supply?  And the paid-for childcare market, already changed by 30-hours could take a while to recover to anything near what it used to be.

Our relationships will be the vital ingredient in what happens next.  Solutions exist in the sector and will need to be further developed, change identified and created together.

 

We all sat in front of our screens in Leicester yesterday evening. Hanging on every word uttered by Matt Hancock in the House of Commons. We were not eagerly expecting good news. There was more of a sense of silent dread. The city has been an unusually gloomy place since our lockdown was extended for two weeks. We’re not normally like that.

The reality of our local lockdown is restricted travel in and out of the city (there are Police checkpoints), schools and early years settings are only working with children of keyworkers and vulnerable children, non-essential shops, cafes, bars, restaurants and hairdressers all closed.  

The whys and wherefores have been well-scrutinised locally, politically and in the press.  They continue to be.  There are various theories as to why Leicester was chosen to be locally locked down.  Questions remain around what and whose data informed the decision?  What social conditions drove a spike in cases?  How local is local?  What was the reasoning around the geographical boundary drawing?  How can the effects of increased testing skew data?  And who made the decisions, when and how?  I won’t get into any of that.  Fascinating as it is.  It is just too depressing to live with.  The fact remains that for another fortnight we are locked down in Leicester. 

I confess it was very annoying to read the press and several congratulatory texts received last night that considered this lockdown to be an ‘easing’. It isn’t much. I live and work right in the centre of the city. Both of my businesses are in the city centre, one of them a shop. And Hancock’s announcement meant nothing will change for me, my household, and those businesses. What has changed, is the city exclusion zone boundary has been redrawn, in favour of neighbouring towns in the county, and local decision-makers have powers over non-essential shops’ opening or closures (what that means remains to be seen), and schools and early years settings can reopen fully from 24 July 2020. A curious offer to schools to reopen in the midst of the summer holidays I have to say. That said, schools must do more to complement local childcare provision and enable it to continue.

It still means that people are discouraged to enter or leave the city for anything other than essential journeys.  This is staggeringly destructive for a city like Leicester.  You see, Leicestershire and Leicester is like a doughnut.  The relatively affluent county of Leicestershire surrounds the ‘hole’ in the middle, Leicester, one of the most impoverished cities you will find.  I’m not saying Leicester is a hole, I love the city, but you get my point.  Without county folk coming to work, shop or use services, the city is a very different place.  The demand for childcare, for shopping, for anything is curtailed significantly.  And these effects will be long lasting as people come to view Leicester as a special case, perhaps less safe than elsewhere.  

Early years and childcare providers in Leicester are inevitably struggling to manage these changing conditions.  Like everywhere else, there was a growing sense of optimism and confidence in childcare use from 1 June 2020.  Now we are stuck in reverse gear.  Suspended as it were in aspic.  With people working from home, the summer holidays, swathes of businesses remaining closed, no migration into the city and these controls over how the population can move and behave, current and likely future demand is very low.

The local authority team, who I know well, reported in one of our online regional networks this month, their response team was in regular contact with providers, information was being shared, risks were being identified.  They have been consulting settings, ensuring government funding support is being accessed, and sufficiency is managed.  Grant funding has been made available for those who fell between the cracks of the national funding schemes.  A package of great support.  They also reported parental confidence in returning to using provision is low.  Numbers using also remains low. 

I would urge any local authority to consider what characteristics they share, or parts of their area shares with Leicester.  There could be a need for targeted and differentiated support for providers in those areas.  Especially with PPE and safe practices.  In Leicester, many children were found to be COVID-19 positive, and whilst they were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, they were going home to cramped housing and multi-generational families, often with vulnerable relatives.  This is a key element of risk assessment.  In terms of business support and provider sustainability there will be huge need to change and adapt.  Our Finding Your Way Through programme helps with this.  The sector will experience highly dynamic change of need, demand and preferences, of parents and practitioners and providers.  LAs need to be front and centre by market managing this change.

It’s an obvious and easy call to ask for more government funds, but Leicester, already economically deprived enough, is at a further disadvantage by having to endure at least four more weeks of lockdown, and the ripple effects caused by the stigma attached. Two reasons why more could and should be done to help business such as early years and childcare to better weather this storm. Lockdown could go on for weeks or months to come. And there is always the risk of a second wave of COVID-19 in the autumn and winter. The whole sector needs investment, not just in Leicester, to protect it, develop it, change it and help families, businesses and the economy to recover in turn.