With 3 children per childcare place in Lancashire - parents fill gap

International think tank Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute found that 1.5million UK children have poor access to childcare – with the North West, South East and London having the most places.

Still, Lancashire boroughs a few miles apart can have huge differences.

Blackburn with Darwen has four children to every childcare place while nearby Rossendale has two.

The government said it will offer 30 free childcare hours to parents with children aged nine months to five years by next September – but pressures remain.

And parents have dealt with them in innovative ways.

Catherine Armstrong and Patrick Armstrong (Image: Patrick Armstrong)

For six years, Patrick Armstrong, 40, of Edenfield, couldn’t find wraparound care for his three children, Alba, 9, Arlo, 7 and Archie, 11.

A physics graduate, he worked tirelessly as a delivery driver and 111 operator to manage without it.

He said: “I did shift work out of school hours.

“It meant I could do pick-ups, drop-offs and provide the wraparound care myself."

Two years ago, an idea came. 

Patrick, owner of Armstrong family’s Tiney home, said: “My wife Catherine and I were joking that we already do the school run, there must be a way to be paid for it.

“And one of the local childminders told us to try her business.

“A mother at the school told us about tiney, [the country’s largest childminder agency].”

And he and Catherine, an NHS speech and language therapist, took the leap into childminding.

Room in Armstrongs' tiney nursery (Image: Patrick Armstrong)

He said: “We went through all the training and safeguarding needed.”

They started their childminding business with tiney’s help and began providing wraparound care.

Patrick said: “We play with the children and try to create a very relaxed atmosphere.

“There's a reason it’s called a tiney home nursery. It’s like a home setting for the kids.

“They know they're coming to a safe, warm, happy environment where they're going to be taken care of.

“We have a good space and try not to overcrowd it.”

And as soon as they started, requests started flooding in.

He said: “We were already well-known in the primary school in Ramsbottom.

“Many parents have come to us from the beginning wanting wraparound care.

“And our business has been growing through word of mouth.

“We’ve had to manage the demand so that we're not struggling to get children in.

“The nursery is as full as it can be.”

Men like Patrick make up just 3 per cent of the UK’s Early Years workforce.

He said: “I’m the only male childminder in our North West group.

“But nobody has been surprised. People seem to like it.

“Young children have access to a lot of female role models.

“This gives them a chance to have a male role model.”

And he has found the work rewarding.

He said: “It’s fulfilling to help children learn and seeing their development.

“From teaching them to tie their shoelaces to assisting them with building something new.

“My long-term goal was to become a physics teacher. But this is a different way of helping children at an earlier stage in their life.”