10 August 2023
PARENT MEMO
ON GOING BOOKINGS AND CANCELLATIONS IN VACATION CARE
Since our inception in 2005, I’d like to think that we, at Community OOSH Services, have been very different to other Childcare Centres in many ways. We have endeavoured to make our booking and cancellation policy as family friendly as possible. Our 24hr notice cancellation/no charge policy has always been by far and away the best value compared to the mandatory 2-week notice/no charge policies applied by most other operators in the industry.
Unfortunately, however, we now find ourselves in the position of having to change our policy and put a different system in place due to problems arising with people making “blanket bookings” and failing to cancel or cancelling at the last minute (a problem, exacerbated by the influx of enrolments brought on during the now defunct NSW Government Incentive $500 Before & After School Care vouchers).
We have always released our programs 4 weeks out from the school holidays. Over the last twelve months we have had seen centres “Book Out” completely within days of going online in a practice where people are blanketly blocking out every day because they are unsure of their actual childcare needs. When they do find out weeks later, they cancel the days they don’t need at the last minute leaving empty places at centres. However, in that time period, the people with real needs have been locked out, moved to other centres or have desperately made other arrangements for care when they could have filled those empty places at with genuine bookings at their home centre.
Whilst we have put several structures in place in recent holiday periods (i.e., one-week early release booking for existing clients and two weeks out warning notifications to readjust bookings to allow the opening up of days) this has done little to fix the main problem. So, somewhat reluctantly, we are now having to resort to becoming like everyone else.
From Monday 28 August we will be implementing a mandatory 2-week notice of Cancellation period for our Vacation Care programs. This means that you will be charged your normal gap fee if you cancel care without 2 weeks’ notice.
We hope that this will create a pattern of booking and cancellation behaviour that allows all families the chance to access the care they need in an appropriate and timely manner at the centre where the children feel most at home.
N.B. This change only applies to our Vacation Care Bookings. As we are not experiencing any problems yet in our Before & after school care systems our 24hr notice cancellation/no charge policy will remain in place.
We thank you for your understanding and hope you’ll work with us to achieve the best outcomes for all concerned.
David Bourke, Katrina Adams & Billie Clayton
Directors, Community OOSH Services