The recently announced "Implementation Plan for the Construction of Urban Community Embedded Service Facilities" proposes that community embedded service facilities provide one or more services for community residents, such as elderly care, community meal assistance, and housekeeping and convenience. The reporter interviewed and saw that in recent years, some cities have taken the lead in exploring convenient, high-quality and inclusive community childcare, which has effectively alleviated the childcare pressure of some dual-income families and has been widely recognized, but in the face of increasing demand, community childcare still needs to improve supporting facilities, increase quality and open up the "last mile" to serve the masses.
Community "with a baby" is sought after by parents.
At 8:30 a.m., Ms. Wu took her two-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter to a community "baby house" just a 10-minute walk from her home. Through the floor-to-ceiling window, she saw the children playing happily in the company of the teacher, so she turned to her own business.
Proximity and convenience are the distinguishing features of community childcare. Located on the second floor of Gaoling Market, Zhenru Town Street, Putuo District, Shanghai, the "baby house" is built using the idle space of the street, with a space of 90 square meters divided into areas such as puzzles, graffiti, sports, and "doll's house", providing 30 nursery places, and providing care forces with a teacher-student ratio of 1:5 according to the number of appointments every day. "It's close to home, it's a nice environment, my granddaughter loves to come here, and we also have a little time to relax. Ms. Wu said.
On December 6, the staff of the "Baby House" in the community of Zhenru Town, Putuo District, Shanghai, conducted a health examination for the child before entering the nursery. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wu Zhendong.
* is an important issue for parents. Xinhong Community Infant and Toddler Growth Center, Shuangqiaozi Street, Chenghua District, Chengdu, Sichuan Province is one of the first community childcare institutions in Chengdu, which is opened by the street to the Xinhong Community Party and Mass Service Center and opened after the introduction of the operator, providing a total of 60 nursery places, implementing inclusive pricing to meet the childcare needs of the people in and around the community. The reporter saw that the institution has a relatively independent space, and the environment is full of childlike fun. At 5 p.m., the children ate under the care of the teacher, and the dinner that day was a rice bowl with diced bean curd and chicken and seaweed soup with shrimp skin.
We provide full-time, part-time, and temporary childcare services for children under the age of 3, and are staffed by 13 staff, including childcare workers and health doctors. Hu Yujie, head of the Xinhong Community Infant and Toddler Development Center, said that the full-day childcare fee is 2,900 yuan per month, which is lower than the charging standard of market childcare institutions.
On November 3, the children were playing in the activity venue on the second floor of the Xinhong Community Infant Growth Center, Shuangqiaozi Street, Chenghua District, Chengdu. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee).
Learning Xi while "sending babies" is a realistic demand for many novice parents, so it has also become the content of community childcare services. The reporter walked into the "Sunflower Parent-Child Cottage" on Wenchong Street, Huangpu District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, and saw that it not only provides temporary care for infants and toddlers, parent-child interaction, toy drifting and other services, creating a good-neighborly and reassuring childcare environment, but also through the holding of parent classes, home guidance, etc., and constantly send scientific parenting concepts and services to young parents.
The new trick is a real trick to crack the "can't afford it" and "can't find it".
According to the data of the National Health Commission, the number of infants and young children under the age of 3 in China exceeds 32 million, of which 1 3 have a relatively strong demand for childcare services. However, the contradiction between the high demand for parental childcare and the low actual childcare rate has existed for a long time, and the main reasons are the scattered distribution of resources and the high fees of for-profit institutions. How to meet the expectations of more families to "afford" and "get to" community childcare has been explored in various places.
Community stake to reduce operating costs. Different from traditional public and private childcare projects, Chengdu Xinhong Community Infant and Toddler Development Center is implemented in the form of a social enterprise jointly established by the Xinhong Community Neighborhood Committee and the operator, and the neighborhood committee holds 40% of the shares, which significantly reduces the cost of running a kindergarten.
In addition to enjoying the preferential policies of inclusive childcare, the center can also enjoy the relevant preferential policies for social enterprises in Chengdu, and has achieved low-profit revenue. Hu Yujie said that this model also achieves a win-win situation between the institution and the community, and with the participation and supervision of the community, parents have more trust in the institution.
In order to ensure inclusiveness, some provinces require community childcare institutions to provide a certain number of free care services for families in need every year, and the part that exceeds the number of times is in accordance with the principle of non-profit, taking into account factors such as investment, operating costs, and residents' affordability, and scientifically and reasonably determining the charging standards, which are clarified through service agreements.
Scientific distribution, squeeze out the office space. The reporter saw in Jiangning Road Street, Jing'an District, Shanghai, that through the consolidation of public service facilities in the community, the street has been built and opened 5 "baby houses", which are located in the community comprehensive service center for the elderly, the party and the masses service center, Nanyang Experimental Kindergarten, Wujiang kindergarten and Jiangjiaxiang community, all within a 15-minute walk of residents.
Shanghai has made it clear that each town should allocate 15% of the number of children under the age of 3 in its jurisdiction, and by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan", the coverage rate of the city's "baby house" towns will reach 85% (including 100% in the central urban area).
On December 6th, the children played in the "baby house" in the community of Caoyang New Village, Putuo District, Shanghai. Photo by Zhang Junjie.
School-community co-education to improve the level of teachers. The growing demand for childcare services calls for more high-quality teachers. In recent years, many places have actively promoted the training of childcare professionals. A total of 20 childcare majors from 14 undergraduate colleges and universities in Guangdong Province have been selected into the "Double Ten Thousand Plan" for the construction of national first-class undergraduate majorsGuangzhou City instructs municipal and district secondary vocational schools to set up infant and toddler care related majors, training nearly 2,000 professional caregivers every year, and a total of 91 private vocational training institutions in the city carry out vocational skills training for nursery teachers and nurses. In Shanghai and other cities, employees of qualified childcare institutions can participate in the recognition of the professional skill level of nursery teachers and nursery workers, and those who have obtained the corresponding level certificate according to the regulations can apply for vocational skill improvement subsidies.
Community childcare still needs to be improved incrementally.
Respondents pointed out that with the inclusion of infant and child care services in economic and social development plans, and the gradual establishment of a system of policies, regulations, standards and norms, there is a good foundation for China to build an inclusive and diversified childcare service system. However, as far as the fledgling community childcare is concerned, there are still problems such as mismatch between supply and demand, and lack of supporting facilities still exist, and it is necessary to promote the coordination and joint efforts of the family, society and the market.
Solve the difficulty of opening a childcare center. Hu Yujie said that because most of the community sites have property rights, land attributes and other issues, it is difficult to prepare for community childcare centers in the license to handle the license, and the relevant management regulations for community housing to open childcare institutions should be clarified. Hu Guifen, a member of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, also suggested that the existing public service facilities in the city should be integrated and expanded, and the total amount of inclusive childcare services should be expanded in the form of shared utilization or renovation and expansion.
Reasonably share the cost of childcare. Respondents said that ** can reduce the burden of family childcare through the issuance of inclusive childcare consumption subsidy vouchers, so that more families can receive childcare support;For community childcare operators, giving one-time subsidies for start-up fees, issuing comprehensive awards and subsidies to support daily operations, and introducing relevant tax incentives are all effective ways to help them reduce costs.
Promote the development of "trust" to "trust". In addition to the convenient and affordable "care", parents also hope to obtain professional, scientific, and reliable quality "education". Xi Lan, director of the early education center of Putuo District, Shanghai, said that childcare institutions should put the protection of children's physical and mental health and safety in the first place, establish and improve the safety management and safety responsibility system, and regularly carry out relevant training, inspections and drills, so as to effectively guard the bottom line of safety. On this basis, it is necessary to formulate and implement the norms for children's life and play during the nursery period, strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of the service quality of childcare institutions, and carry out joint teaching and research on the integration of education and medical care, so as to promote the steady improvement of the quality of community childcare.
Wang Bojun, vice president of Shanghai Open University, suggested that by providing sufficient training and practice opportunities, building a complete talent training system, and improving the career promotion mechanism, we should continue to improve the comprehensive quality of childcare practitioners and lay a solid talent support for the incremental quality improvement of community childcare.
Wu Zhendong, Wu Xiaoying, Zheng Tianhong, Guo Jingdan, Zhang Junjie.
Editors: Hao Jing, Li Minghui.