Childminding service for infants up to 18 months old to be launched under 3-year pilot: MSF

SINGAPORE — A new infant childminding service will be introduced in the second half of this year to provide parents with an affordable and reliable alternative caregiving option.

This will be run as a three-year pilot at first, and will be for children aged two to 18 months. 

The move came while the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) is looking at ways to provide stronger caregiving support for parents of infants, Ms Sun Xueling said.

The Minister of State for Social and Family Development was in Parliament on Wednesday (March 6) to present her ministry's upcoming spending needs.

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During the 16-month-long feedback exercise known as Forward Singapore, many Singaporeans spoke about the struggles and anxieties that they faced in raising their children, especially those who are parents of infants and of children with developmental needs, she noted.

"Many parents explained that the most challenging period was during the first 18 months as they are adapting to a new phase of life to care for an infant while juggling work responsibilities," she said.

Some parents find it difficult to get a place at an infant-care centre near their homes, and family support might not be readily available as family sizes are shrinking and grandparents are still working.

Childminders, or what some may know as “nannies”, are not a new concept, Ms Sun added.

They were more common in Singapore in the 1970s and 1980s — some childminders would look after a few children in their own homes, while others would head to the child's home to look after the infant.

"They are less common today as parents may be unsure of where to look for trusted childminders or they may find childminding relatively more expensive compared to other caregiving options such as infant-care centres," Ms Sun said.

The pilot aims to serve 500 infants in the first year, before increasing its intake over the next two years. 

MSF said that three years will offer enough time to meaningfully evaluate the pilot and gather feedback from parents.

The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) will be in charge of appointing childminding operators, who will then hire or engage potential childminders for the pilot.

Each hired childminder will be allowed to care for up to three infants at any one time, either in the childminder's home or at community spaces such as community centres or clubs.

Community spaces, such as community centres, will be in areas of high infant-care demand so that parents may conveniently access the childminding services.

Parents will also have more flexibility to discuss their care preferences and requirements with the childminder.

ECDA will conduct background checks on operators and childminders, and require operators to meet certain service requirements. These include: 

• Assessing the suitability and homes of the childminders
• Putting in place guidelines for child-safe practices and responsibilities of childminders
• Disclosing childminders' profiles to parents 
• Establishing processes for incident management
• Ensuring that childminders undergo required training in areas such as basic infant care, first aid, and food safety and hygiene

In addition, ECDA and childminding operators will be co-developing industry standards for the childminding sector to ensure safe and reliable services.

This includes laying out what constitutes a safe childminding environment and the respective responsibilities of operators and childminders to ensure baseline service standards across appointed operators.

To keep the service affordable, ECDA will provide funding to appointed operators.

"We aim to make parents’ expenses for childminding services similar to what a median-income family pays for infant care at anchor operators," Ms Sun said. This is about S$700 a month.

The Government will also allow parents to tap the Child Development Account under the Baby Bonus scheme to further defray the cost of these childminding services under the pilot.

MSF and ECDA will continue to engage parents, childminders and childminding operators to refine the parameters of the pilot, and more details will be announced in the second half of this year, Ms Sun added.