Newcastle parents are facing the prospect of deciding who will leave work to provide full-time care or struggling through a gruelling wait to find a new daycare centre for their children as the Newcastle Anglican Diocese plans to close its two daycare centres in Darby Street and Woodbery at the end of the year.
Spaces are so limited that parents are applying to waitlists well before their children are even born to secure affordable daycare and early education services in the region, all while the state faces an undersupply of accessible and affordable care services, particularly in disadvantaged areas.
Parents of the Newcastle and Maitland Samaritans centres fear losing their children's access to early education if the Anglican charity closes its doors and say they were blindsided by the Diocese's decision.
Samaritans told the Newcastle Herald earlier this month that it would close its two Hunter not-for-profit daycare centres to focus on core welfare and emergency relief services. The organisation has negotiated with Newcastle and Maitland councils to support parents through the transition.
But parents of some 53 children who attend the Darby Street centre, facing the prospect of a drastic six-month search to secure new daycare services after learning of the plans to close in July, say that the decision has left them reeling and, given the short availability of services throughout the sector, with precious little time to find new arrangements.
Parents in Maitland have launched a petition to garner support for saving the Woodberry centre as MP Jenny Aitchinson appealed to state and federal colleagues about the issue. Notwithstanding the closures, she said the state government was committed to investing in early childhood education, with two new centres pegged for the Hunter in 2027.
David Summers, whose two daughters Auri and Freya, aged five and three, have attended daycare at Darby Street, said he and his partner were facing the prospect of deciding who will leave work to provide full-time care if the centre closes.
"We have sent both of our kids here, and it has worked out well for us," he said, "It's just around the corner. The centre has a good relationship with Newcastle East Public School up the road, and they run a great program where Pia and Auri are now in Kindergarten - they met here ... Finding another place is really difficult."
Pia is Felipe Flores' five-year-old daughter and a close friend of the Summers girls. Mr Flores said there was a "gravitational pull" in the early education centre's community where parents quickly bonded, and their children made friends that they carried on to Kindergarten and primary school.
"It makes it difficult for them," Mr Flores, whose two daughters also attend the centre, said of its imminent closure. "I think it is important for the kids to be with their friends and grow socially. It creates such a good community."
Mr Summers is an IT professional, and his partner is a teacher. He and Mr Flores have both moved to Newcastle with their young families in the past five years to raise their children in the Hunter. Mr Flores said the Samaritans helped his family find a connection in the city and a sense of community.
"We were integrated through the Samaritans," he said. "It is how we met our friends, and our kids met their friends."
"There is such low availability of daycare that when we first got to Newcastle, we went on so many waiting lists, and everyone was saying to put your kids on a waiting list when you're pregnant just to get them in."
Emily Winborne, an organiser of a group of concerned parents who have banded together to try to save the centre from closing, said the challenges both Mr Flores' and Mr Summers' families faced were endemic in the region.
"There are other daycares in Newcastle," she said, "But everywhere is full. Finding a place is very difficult. I know some families have been on a waiting list for a long time and still don't have all the days they need."
"It's so critical having a not-for-profit centre, where the funding is all going back into the centre for the kids. I'm not a daycare expert, but as a parent, it's important to know that all the funds are going back into looking after my children."
Parents are hopeful that another provider will come forward to take over the day-to-day running of the two centres in Newcastle and Woodberry to keep the doors open and the service available to local families. The City of Newcastle, which subsidised a part of the rent for the Darby Street centre, as it does for several other not-for-profit outfits in the city, has made overtures to other known providers to secure the future of the local daycare but said at the weekend, on Saturday, August 24, that its efforts were ongoing.
"We're committed to making sure that there is a new operator to take over the continuity of the centre for the parents," Deputy Lord Mayor Declan Clausen, who attended a meeting of the parents at Civic Park on Saturday morning, said. "It's really disappointing that the incumbent provider has decided to leave with such short notice."
Cr Clausen said the City had been working with parents, as well as through its state government counterparts, to fast-track licensing regulations governing a potential handover between operators to try to ensure the centre can remain open. Anglicare has leased the Darby Street centre since 2014.
In December, an Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal review of the early education sector found that there was a shortage of accessible and affordable quality childcare services generally, exacerbated by a short-handed workforce and a fragmented and inefficient funding system across the sector that left families, particularly those whose children have diverse needs, at a disadvantage.
The lack of availability, the report warned, resulted in "major inequalities in education and employment outcomes" over time.
The IPART report argued that the lack of comprehensive digital services and data about early childhood education made it hard for families to find services and impeded good decision-making for providers and policy-makers. Its authors called on state and federal governments to intervene to develop coordinated policy and funding for early childhood education and care. It said that families need more flexible options and would benefit from more support from their workplaces while available subsidies fall short of covering actual costs.
The report estimated that long daycare services, like those offered by the Darby Street centre, could cost parents as much as $195 a day per place, while community preschools were priced between $80 and $150 per day.
The online service comparison resource for parents, CareForKids, estimated that a hypothetical couple with one child could expect to pay more than $150,000 a year for long daycare services over five working days weekly in Newcastle.
"Participating in high-quality early childhood services offers children significant developmental and social benefits, with (vulnerable children) experiencing the most benefits," the final report said. "Additional investment in supporting children experiencing vulnerability to access early childhood services would improve their developmental outcomes and likely result in long-term economic benefits.
"Action is needed to improve access to services and increase support for families", particularly those with diverse needs and those facing vulnerability across the state, the report said.
A Samaritans spokeswoman said discussions were "progressing well" with Newcastle and Maitland councils to keep the services going under new operators.
"Samaritans' priority is the continuity of care for children and the future of staff," she said.
"Families and staff are being regularly updated as these discussions progress."
"Samaritans has recently met with Newcastle council representatives about transferring the licence of the Darby Street centre to a suitable provider and is hopeful of a positive resolution in due course."
