Here the team at Enrolment Hub explore the benefits of sessional care and how to ensure it works at your Centre.

How can sessional care increase revenue?

Sessional Care is incredibly beneficial to both Families and Centre’s – it really is a win win for everyone!

By providing differing childcare sessions within a day, Families are able to utilise and optimise the subsidies they receive from the Federal Government for often minimal increases in the gap fee. Families feel like they are getting the most bang for their buck, only paying for what they use, and often enjoy the flexibility sessional care affords them.

By offering this flexibility, Centres are in turn able to raise their occupancy and increase their revenue at the same time, whilst also potentially reducing their staffing costs during the day.

What you now need to decide is whether you want to offer sessional care, or flexible hours.

Sessional Care vs Flexible Hours

Sessional Care: Childcare Providers typically offer one block of care, that runs from when the Centre opens to when it closes. Sessional care gives Families the option of choosing a smaller block of time (usually a 9hr or 10hr session) to allow them to stretch their Child Care Subsidy further. Sessional care blocks will have a defined start and end time.

Flexible Hours: Whilst Families still adhere to a smaller session of care, flexible hours take sessional care one step further by allowing flexibility for Families to choose when their sessional block of care begins and ends each day.

 

How do you work out what is best for your Centre?

By reviewing your previous attendance records and looking for patterns – we suggest roughly 6 months to get the best results.

Ask yourself – are the bulk of Families consistently dropping off and picking up at the same defined times throughout the day? If they are, perhaps sessional care would work better for you and your Families?

Do you have shift and casual workers? Perhaps offering flexible care and session lengths might be a better option (and be better utilised) by your Families.

Only you can decide what will work for your team and Families, however if you need a little help with the deep dive and investigation of your attendance records, our team at Enrolment Hub are here to help. Just give them a call on 02 8123 2300.

How to optimise your Families CCS

Now for the tricky part.

Once you have decided to implement a sessional care arrangement with your Families, it’s time to educate. Most Families are unaware of the intricacies of the Child Care Subsidy, so you will need to work this through with every Family individually.

Here are a few steps to get you started.

Review Family usage and complete your CCS calculations

Review each Families usage of their CCS, gap fee payments and how that could change with the introduction of sessional care. Would they be able to pick up an extra day easily with minimal cost? Are they better off staying with a full day session?

These are complex calculations, and they take time and focus to analyse. If you don’t have the time, our team are here to help and can complete these calculations for you using your existing data.  Just get in touch with the team here

Get on the phone

Now that you have completed your calculations it’s time to get on the phone with each Family and discuss their options. You will need to explain how the Child Care Subsidy works and also how the differing sessions will allow them to utilise their CCS entitlements better. Be clear with the differing gap fee payments they will need to make and what the rules around your new sessions are (i.e., late pickup fees, how hours will be tracked etc).

Talk activities

With so many changes to Families working situations around COVID-19, it’s important to remind Families of all the recognised activities that can affect the level of CCS entitlements they receive. Most Families will only claim for the paid work they do, however recognised activities can also include unpaid leave, unpaid work experience, volunteering, actively looking for work and training.

Making Families aware of these recognised activities could see their entitlements increase, and therefore their ability to pick up additional days.

You can find a full list of what is considered a registered activity here.

Overwhelmed by the paperwork? It’s time to enlist some helpers

There is a lot of administration involved in sessional care, especially now, with many Providers waiving the gap fee.

Don’t get crushed by the overload of paperwork and math. We are here to help.

Life is only set to get busier over the next few months as many Families return to care, and new year re-enrolments get underway. Look ahead and outsource key and required business functions like administration to ensure you’re able to support your Families and continue to help your Centre thrive.

Remove tasks like completing CCS calculations, gap fee waiver paperwork, and cross-checking attendances with sessions from your plate. They do not require your special set of skills to complete and your time is better used on more valuable tasks.

Why not chat with Enrolment Hub about how we can support you and allow your Centre and business to flourish?

Simply get in touch with the team here.

 

Enrolment Hub – Your Partner

Enrolment Hub offers a comprehensive range of services, including childcare centre administration, early learning centre management services, childcare centre enquiry, early learning centre enrolment, childcare centre marketing solutions, new child care centre support, childcare software management, early learning centre resources, vacation care management and early learning centre consultants

 

Our team are experienced, professional and knowledgeable, and know all there is to know about enrolments in the Early Education and Childcare Sector.

Enrolment Hub are an extension of your team, working in partnership and caring about your business just as much as you do.

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