Terri is a Retail Manager and her shifts vary every day, every week. Before her son was born she explored local childcare options and began to feel anxious.
Terri explains, “Normal childcare agencies offer half day 8-1 or full day 8-6. We had no one to collect him at 1pm and we didn’t need him to be in care until 6pm. Unfortunately a full day was the only option for us which meant we would have had to pay about £80 a day. I literally would have been working to simply pay childcare meaning I’d be making about £20 a day.”
Thankfully Terri found Flexible Childcare Services Scotland’s Kilmarnock nursery based in the CentreStage Village. The nursery offers a flexible early learning and childcare model which allows Terri to book childcare by the hour, change her bookings to meet her shift patterns and only pay for the hours she actually books.
Both Terrie and her husband Rikki have benefitted from the flexible service in Kilmarnock; the nursery has helped Rikki to go back to university and study for his dream job. The flexibility with the nursery has allowed both parents to return to making a career for themselves, whilst knowing their son is in the best place with a great team.
“Flexible childcare allowed us to plan and organise our schedules, organise with family for pickups that was suitable to their work schedule also. If this flexible service wasn’t there, it would have either been better for myself to stay at home making no money and impacting mental health for all of us, or putting my son into care, working all hours and making no money.”
Initially their son used the nursery 3 days a week, from 7:30-2:30pm matching their parent’s shifts. However since then their son has started in the local school nursery but Flexible Childcare Scotland’s Kilmarnock nursery is still a crucial part of their lives.
“We use them for school holidays as we both cannot get the time off especially during Summer and Easter. Without it I simply couldn’t work or would have to take unpaid leave to look after him. Overall the flexible childcare model has allowed us all to return to normality, without the extra pressure of it affecting our careers and income. It’s literally saved us all and we cannot thank the team enough at Kilmarnock.”
