When childcare is canceled

How can work and childcare be organized if daycare is restricted or canceled? All parents are familiar with this question: whether it's due to illness of the caregiver or child, staff shortages, childcare restrictions, strikes or other reasons - when childcare suddenly stops, parents have to look for a solution quickly. Our guide shows you what you can do in this situation.

First of all, it helps to keep a cool head and reorganize: What are the options? Can grandparents, neighbors, friends or the parents of a friend's child help out spontaneously? Can the busy schedule be changed or can work be moved to the home office? Can the child come to the office with you or do you have to use a vacation day?

A well-maintained network is always helpful when it comes to finding support at short notice.

Tips:

• A small emergency list with the contacts of grandparents, babysitters, childminders, friends, neighbors or parents of a friend's child helps you to organize yourself quickly in an emergency.
• Inform yourself at your youth welfare office about short-term childcare options in your city or municipality. Our Family Guide will show you the right places to go.
• Use your local authority's digital platforms - many cities in NRW offer online portals with information on childcare.
• Ask your daycare facility or childminder whether there are alternative care options or placement agencies.

When there is suddenly not enough staff available at the daycare center, many parents ask themselves: Will my child still be looked after?

In such situations, facilities have to react quickly. "Emergency care" or partial closure - beyond the legally permitted 27 days of closure per year - is only used as a last resort. Many providers have their own emergency or crisis plan for such cases.

The provider of the daycare facility decides which solution is possible in each individual case. They are responsible for ensuring that the agreed care continues to be provided - even in the context of "emergency care".

The child's individual support needs and your personal care needs as parents should be taken into account.

If the care provided by day carers is unavailable, the youth welfare office is responsible. It must ensure that an alternative care option is found in good time.

Nowadays, mobile working and working from home are the norm in many companies. The option of working from home or being able to flexibly adjust working hours in the event of emergencies or a lack of childcare can be helpful for parents: they can stay at home with their child at short notice without having to look for extra childcare.

Tips:

• Check with your employer at an early stage whether and how you can work remotely at short notice.
• Is there a flexitime model? Then it can help to postpone working hours or balance them out on other days.
• Use time accounts - if available - to use plus hours or build up minus hours.
• If both parents work: Agree on who stays at home and when. Alternating days over several days can reduce the pressure.
• If daycare is unavailable for longer: clarify whether you can flexibly adjust your hours or take (unpaid) special leave. Seek advice on whether there are alternative childcare options or whether a change of childcare provider is an option.

And if all else fails? Then there is always the alternative of taking leave at short notice to ensure childcare at home. If you are no longer entitled to leave, you can apply for unpaid leave or have minus hours written to your work account, which can be made up later. In any case, speak openly with your employer. Most companies today will accommodate you with flexible solutions.

Taking your child to work with you can be a short-term option in some industries. Although this is not a permanent solution, it can help in an emergency. However, certain conditions must be met:

• Your employer must agree.
• The profession and the workplace must be suitable. In construction, hospitals or laboratories, for example, this option is not an option.
• Your child must be supervised and no one must feel significantly disturbed by your child's presence.
• If necessary, the insurance issue must be clarified and it must be checked whether the public liability insurance will cover any damage.

Tips:

• Ask your employer well in advance whether your child can come with you in an emergency.
• Pack an "emergency child bag" with toys, books, snacks and headphones - ready to hand for spontaneous situations.
• Also talk to colleagues. There is often understanding - especially if you communicate openly.

It is then worth looking for cross-company solutions. This is a particularly good idea if there are several colleagues with children working in your company and there are frequent spontaneous reorganizations of childcare. It may be possible to join forces and look around for in-house services with the support of your employer.

Tips:

• Bring up such ideas with your employer - for example via the works council or HR department.
• Smaller solutions can also help: a playroom, flexible drop-off times or subsidies for childcare costs.
• Exchange ideas with other parents to make joint suggestions.

If there are several parents working in your team or company, it is worth sharing solutions and mutual help.

Tips:

• Found a small network group with other parents - e.g. via chat, email or regular face-to-face meetings.
• Get an internal platform or a parent contact person in the company. Perhaps the company has an internal "family service" that you can contact.
• There may be opportunities to organize emergency care together with the employer - e.g. in cooperation with childminders or independent providers.
• An alternative are external professional babysitters who can step in. Suitable childcare services can often be found on the internet. In larger cities, the Notmütterdienst association helps to fill gaps in childcare.

If a strike paralyzes the daycare facility and parents are unable to work due to childcare, they may be entitled to continued payment of wages in exceptional cases. Section 616 of the German Civil Code (BGB) allows short-term paid leave from work if employees are unable to work for a "relatively short period" for personal reasons - for example, because they cannot have their child looked after elsewhere. However, employment contracts, works agreements and collective agreements can explicitly exclude the provisions of Section 616 BGB.

Yes, if your child is ill, you are allowed to stay away from work. This also applies if the childcare facility is closed by order of the authorities. In this case, you should inform your employer as soon as possible that you cannot come in.

If your child is ill, you are entitled to up to 15 child sick days per child and parent under certain conditions; single parents are entitled to 30 days per child and year. You can find out more about this topic in the article "Child sickness benefit" here on Familienportal.NRW.

It can happen that a daycare center restricts its childcare hours, closes groups or that a childminder is unavailable due to staff shortages or strikes. Many parents then ask themselves: Do we still have to pay the parental contribution to the youth welfare office or the meal allowance to the daycare center or childminder?

In principle, the following applies: According to Section 90 Paragraph 1 of the Eighth German Social Code, cost contributions may be charged for childcare in daycare facilities or by childminders - unless they are unreasonable for the parents and the child.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, the respective youth welfare office local authority decides for itself whether and to what extent parental contributions are charged for publicly funded childcare places. If contributions are charged, they must be socially staggered - in other words, the amount depends on the parents' income and the hours of care. The respective statutes or guidelines of the local authority are decisive here.

Important to know: These parental contributions are not traditional fees, but contributions of a special kind. Therefore, the usual rules such as the cost recovery or equivalence principle do not apply here. This means that even if childcare is temporarily not possible or only possible to a limited extent, the obligation to pay contributions can remain in place. The contributions are regarded as a share of the financing of the entire childcare provision.

The "fee for meals" (also known as "meal allowance") is regulated separately via the childcare contract. The provider of the childcare facility or the childminder can specify in the contract whether and how much must be paid for meals. Here too, the contractual agreement is decisive.

Tip:
In your specific case, ask your youth welfare office, the provider of the childcare facility or your childminder whether there is a (partial) reimbursement.