#RadicalChildcare

#RadicalChildcare is an initiative to explore, imagine and invest in bold new possibilities for the future of childcare.

Based in Birmingham, we want to work with parents, grandparents, professionals in the sector; commissioners, policy makers, educationalists, serial entrepreneurs and more to develop and test radical solutions to enable children and families to thrive.

Why childcare matters

Childcare has become unaffordable, inflexible and simply not good enough for too many people. Like housing, it's one of the issues in modern life that makes families feel trapped, dictating the limits of their working practice and personal relationships. Together we can do better, by exploring new approaches built on trust, flexibility and shared resources. Together we can find out, if it takes a village to raise a child, what this modern village could look like.

Despite pockets of great practice, childcare choices seem dominated by cost and time constraints. We want to look at childcare that can unleash and uplift families to flourish in a time of rapid change by adapting childcare to how we live, learn and work we can bring out the best in the city for generations to come.

A radical approach

There will never be a single silver bullet to address a systemic challenge like childcare. We aim to host a more optimistic conversation to re-imagine the future of childcare, bringing together lots of people and ideas across public, private and civic life. We hope to deploy financial, social and human capital to help develop imaginative models for future practice. We feel re-designing the childcare system is an idea whose time has come. Recent work shows an increase in focus and energy by citizens.

A radical vision.

Culminating an initial 3 years of exploration, inquiry, conversation and continued experimentation, we have curated 10 interdependent investment areas that we believe need to be simultaneously invested in to radically transform outcomes for children and families, co-created and generated by a range of people as part of a two day design event that took place in July 2018. We are now working to secure investment into this vision which is available in full detail on a new website.