190 more child care places for Braddon190 more child care places for Braddon

Pixie Child Care at Our Lady of Lourdes School will now have 30 extra before school hours care and 45 new vacation care places to offer families in the Devonport area.

Families and Community Services Minister Mal Brough and Member for Braddon Mark Baker announced the extra places while visiting the service today.

“These extra places demonstrate the Howard Government’s commitment to providing families with greater access to child care in the Devonport area,” Mr Brough said.

“In Braddon, about 190 Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) places applied for earlier this year will be available from 1 July provided the services meet relevant criteria.”

Today’s announcement will build on the 1925 existing OSHC and Family Day Cares places in the Braddon electorate and follows the uncapping of OSHC and FCD in the Federal Budget last week. The uncapping will mean that services will find it easier to expand or set up and not have to wait months to be allocated places.

Mr Brough congratulated Mr Baker for being a strong voice in Braddon on child care.

The Howard Government is investing a record $9.5 billion for child care and the 2006-07 Budget did even more.

“The Government also increased JET funding so that income support parents moving back into the workforce face few if any out of pocket child care costs. Additionally, the Budget included measures to improve the compliance and quality and to provide better information on child care availability,” Mr Brough said.

Mr Brough said the Howard Government has more than doubled the number of funded places from 300,000 under Labor to about 700,000 by 2008-09.

Mr Brough also visited the Focus on Families Project in the Mersey Leven community.

Under the Howard Government’s Local Answers initiative, Youth and Family Focus Inc. will receive more than $275,000 over three years to deliver counselling and support to families.