Developing Sustainable Local Childcare Solutions: Summary of Highland Research and Co-production Workshops

Abstract

The Covid-pandemic and the public health measures aimed at containing the virus such as lockdowns, physical distancing and self-isolating, radically changed family life and daily routines, and had particularly dramatic effects on households with dependent children due to the closure of schools and childcare settings. The pandemic highlighted the importance of childcare services as social infrastructure for sustaining the social and individual wellbeing of local communities. The pandemic, however, also exposed the particular difficulties to develop sustainable, crisis-resilient childcare solutions in localities where there already existed pre-pandemic gaps in the availability and accessibility of services.

This paper focuses on childcare in rural communities and presents research and discussions from co-production workshops in Skye and Lochalsh (Highlands) which were part of the wider research programme for the UKRI Covid-19 rapid response project ‘Childcare and Wellbeing in Times of Covid-19’. To see the full report and find out more about the research go to www.childcare-covid.org