‘Increasingly unsafe’: Australia’s in-home childcare program under threat from rising costs, advocate warns

About 800 families in Australia use in-home childcare. Almost one in three providers say they are at risk of shutting down. Photograph: Lourdes Balduque/Getty Images

Rebecca Mohr Bell, a cattle farmer and business owner, lives 100km south-west of Katherine in the Northern Territory, and with three young children, has relied on in-home childcare since 2018.

The little-known taxpayer supported program is used by about 800 families with children who cannot access mainstream care, including because they live in remote locations, have serious illness or a disability, or because their parents work unusual hours.