Social Impact Reports

If you are a single parent on a zero-hours contract how can you get reliable childcare when you need it, and which doesn’t leave you worse off? How do you pay for childcare in order to retrain for work or for better work? What if you need childcare by the hour and not by the session? Or occasionally but not regularly?

The availability of childcare to help parents into work and training is vital in tackling child poverty. But childcare affordability and flexibility are major barriers facing single parents who want to take up work or get qualifications, with the quality of childcare an associated concern.

So, these three features – affordability and flexibility and quality – shape the design of Flexible Childcare Services Scotland from OPFS, a unique childcare service which provides home-based care, daycare, out-of-school care, and crèche. These reports describe both the social impact of affordable, flexible and good quality childcare and what we’ve achieved in the past two years.

These two reports describe the social impact of OPFS affordable, flexible, quality childcare service model in Dundee and what the service achieved in 2017 and 2018.

Since 2014 OPFS flexible childcare service in Dundee has offered a model of daycare which is flexible, affordable and high quality, and which helps parents fulfil the commitments and work patterns expected by many employers and training providers. The daycare element is supplemented by other care including home, school or day care pickups and drop-offs and includes home-based care.

After launching our pilot service in Dundee it demonstrated measurable benefits, both economic and social, for individuals and for communities.

These impact reports describe what FCSS does; who it’s for; why it works; and the value it brings to individuals, families and the wider community.