Access to childcare

Why we’re campaigning

While many parents with disabled children juggle jobs with complex care arrangements against the odds, too often they are forced to cut hours or give up careers due to childcare problems

Our new Counting the Costs research in 2018 shows that 87% of mothers with disabled children can’t work as much as they’d like to, often due to a lack of suitable childcare. When they are able to find childcare, the costs are often unaffordable.

What we want

• The cap on eligible childcare costs via tax credits and Universal Credit to be lifted to £300 for disabled children.
• More funding for local authorities and providers to improve the quality and number of childcare places for all disabled children.
• Better information to enable families to make choices about their childcare.

What you can do

• Refused childcare? Use our childcare access guide [PDF] to understand your rights to childcare and how to challenge decision if you are denied access to childcare.
• We have produced a new webpage on eligibility for the new 30 hours free childcare offer (England only)

• Email una.summerson@contact.org.uk if you have a story to tell or would be interested in challenging a childcare decision through the courts.
• If you’re able to, please consider making a donation so we can continue our life-changing campaign work.

What we’re doing

• We have launched Levelling the Playing: the childcare campaign for disabled children which includes new research and case studies into the take up of the free childcare offer.
• Our Counting the Costs campaign is calling on the UK government to increase help towards childcare costs for disabled children via tax credits, Universal Credit and the tax free childcare scheme.

• We organised the parliamentary inquiry into childcare for disabled children [PDF]. Find out what we told the childcare inquiry [PDF], see our progress report.
• We are lobbying the government to improve the laws around childcare.

What we’ve achieved

• The tax free childcare scheme extended to recognise the higher childcare costs that many families with disabled children face (the first time extra childcare costs have been recognised in policy).
• A supplement to local authorities and childcare providers to help cover the extra costs of childcare for disabled children when accessing the free early years offer.