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Coronavirus: How childminders are caring for children in their own home
May 27, 2020
Of all the groups affected by government moves to get schools and childcare settings fully open, the stakes are probably highest for childminders.
No-one else potentially invites infection into their own homes while they work.
Just like schools, many childminders never closed, instead staying open throughout the crisis to look after the children of key workers and children classed as vulnerable.
Childminders are "the unsung heroes of the pandemic", according to Liz Bayram, chief executive of their professional association, PACEY.
So what's it been like? How have they approached the vexed questions of social distancing and hygiene with the tiniest of children, and what are their thoughts about taking on more children as the lockdown eases?
Some childminders in England told they can reopen 'I had no clue what to do with my little boy'
Safety bubble?
"You take each day at a time and use lots and lots of soap," says Sara, a childminder from Lincolnshire.
Before lockdown started in March she had a thriving business, making at least £2,000 a month - but she's now down to about a third of that.
She still looks after four children of NHS workers, including one with a parent whose job is in intensive care.
Pausing to think of what she might be inviting into her own home is "terrifying", she says, but with four children of her own either at - or heading for - university, she feels she has no choice.
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