We are committed to providing emergency care for families who have no other option but to use gan services because they are required to work in an essential role.
We are permitted to have 5 groups, (with complete separation) operating in the gan. We are required to have completely separate kitchen, toileting facilities, entrances etc and be able to ensure that staff and children from each group will not come into contact with each other anywhere in the building or the garden.
There will be two staff in each group, and a third, covering lunch cover. This means significant more staffing that we usually have, with an increased ratio of 1:4, rather than the usual 1:5 or 1:6.
We are permitted to admit children to the ‘emergency’ gan who fit into the following catalogues:
1. BOTH parents are essential workers, and cannot work from home
2. A SINGLE parent (by legal definition) is an essential worker and cannot work from home
3. ONE parent is an essential worker, and the second parent is incapacitated and cannot care for the child/ren at home
Essential workers as defined by law is now VERY broad, and in our estimation now emcompass 80% of Rainbow families. Given that we are only permitted to take up to 8 children in each group, we need to apply some criteria based approach to meet our aims of providing emergency care for those families most in need of emergency care, and who are most essential. This is a difficult and somewhat unfair task for us to perform, and whatever the outcome, some families are likely to be disappointed if they were not allocated a place.
We will invite all families who wish to use the Emergency gan to complete a google form and to upload relevant evidence to back up their application. Each application will be awarded a number of points, based on the criteria laid out below. Quite simply, the 8 families with the highest points in each group will be allocated the places.
Evidence you will require when completing your application:
1. Essential factory certificate from your employer (example below)
2. Self declaration certificate – signed (can be handwritten and uploaded as a picture)
3. Letter from your employer stating that you CANNOT under any circumstances work from home during the segar and you are required to travel to a work location
4. In the case of freelance/independent – other relevant supporting evidence showing that you MUST travel to a work site and cannot work from home
5. Other supporting evidence that shows your essential worker status, and your inability to work from home
Please do not send us letters from lawyers which ‘confirm’ you meet the legal requirements, such evidence will be discarded as is it not relevant.
Example of Essential Factory Certificate:
The gan is liable for fines if a child is admitted to the gan, where the family does not meet the legal definitions of essential workers. It must also be stated that it is a criminal offence to make a false declaration in this regard either knowingly or unknowingly.
There is a significant difference between ESSENTIAL workers who work in a recognised ‘Essential Factory” (with an official licence) and those EXEMPT from the lockdown with permission to work, as set out in the MOH orders.
There appears to be a lot of confusion between these two categories, indeed it also appears that Rainbow in the past have failed to note the difference when allocating places at the ‘Essential’ gan. Following legal advice, we can now confirm:
All workplaces which hold an essential factory licence will employ people in roles which are considered ‘Essential Worker roles’. These are organisations such as hospitals, social work institutions and utility companies.
Workplaces who have permission to operate during the lockdown, which are classes as ‘exempt’ do not hold the same status as ‘ESSENTIAL’ and will therefore not hold an essential factory licence. For example; construction, financial institutions. People working in these institutions have permission to work, but are NOT considered workers of ESSENTIAL factories, which is who the Essential Gan is allowed to serve.
The VERY clear instruction that we have received is that we should only be issuing places at the gan to workers of essential factories. And, we have been told that this means they must produce the certificate of essential factory.
We are aware that the government have not been issuing new ‘essential factory’ licences to companies who are permitted operate, and are ‘exempt’ from the lockdown, but such workplaces are therefore not recognised as ‘essential factories’.
The remit for the opening of the gan is to provide service to those who are deemed as essential workers, within essential factories. The permission to accept children DOES NOT extend to workers who are ‘exempt’. It is possible, although potentially unlikely, that we could be finned for accepting ‘exempt’ workers, who are not classed as ‘essential’.
We understand that those who are working in ‘exempt’ workplaces, also require childcare to enable them to work and contribute to the economic activity of the country. However, the mandate for ‘Essential Gan’ is limited to those who are formally classified in law as ‘Essential workers’.
Therefore, we will issues places first to those who’s employers have ‘Essential Factory’ status and who’s employer confirms that they are in essential roles, and where there are a surplus of spaces, using the points based system below, we will continue to allocate places to other families, where the job roles are listed in the Health Order, as essential workers, with ‘exemption’ from the lockdown and permission to work.
The points based system:
Points will be allocated on the basis of BOTH parents’ occupation, working from home status and evidence provided. The points from both parents will be combined to provide the family’s overall points. In the case of a single parent, the points allocated will be doubled.
Professions and job role points allocation:
The guidance that has been provided by the Ministry of Labour in a message to gan has stated that we must use this website as the reference for essential worker status: Click here and here for information about the legal definition and explanations for essential factories and here for a list of ‘exempt’ professions
Application process
Each application will be independently assessed and graded by TWO members of the management team, and then will be subject to moderation.
Even if you meet all the criteria, we may still not be able to offer you a place, as the places are limited!
The deadline for applications to be submitted is 7:45pm Monday 15th February 2021. No applications will be accepted after this time.
Click here to access the application form