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Thursday 31 January 2013
AU PAIR CHILDCARE GROWS IN POPULARITY AS DAY CARE CENTERS COSTS SOAR!! As if life wasn’t already expensive enough, Child Care Aware® of America (formerly the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies or NACCRRA), just released its annual report earlier this month and concluded: “Quality child care is becoming increasingly difficult to afford for working families.”
Their in-depth investigation revealed that in 36 states (including Washington DC), the average annual cost for daycare coverage for an infant was higher than a year’s in-state tuition and related fees at a four-year public college. In many states, center-based childcare costs for an infant and a 4-year-old exceeded annual mortgage payments.
The report also reveals that “Even for families fortunate enough to have jobs, wages have decreased while everyday costs continue to rise. ‘Real earnings’ declined in 2011 by about 1 percent, but the cost of living rose by nearly 3.2 percent during that time, and the cost of infant care in a center increased 2 percent.”
New York, Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Indiana and Wisconsin were identified as the least-affordable states for full-time daycare for an infant while New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, Vermont, Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Indiana, Maine and Rhode Island were listed as the least-affordable states for full-time care for a 4-year old.
Because of these rising day care costs, families are looking for other solutions, and one of these solutions has been the au pair program. Stereotypically thought to be cost-prohibitive, many families are finding au pair childcare to be quite the opposite. Melissa Fredette, Executive Vice President for Cultural Care Au Pair, confirms that the demand for au pair childcare is growing. “We’ve definitely seen an increase in families’ interest in the au pair program over the last year.”
Many Cultural Care families across the country would agree that the program’s affordability, along with the flexibility and quality, make it the best choice for their childcare needs.
Amy Pond, a host mom in Denver, CO has hosted four au pairs to care for her twin girls since 2009. She says, “To put my kids in daycare would cost me at least double what I’m paying for an au pair. The same thing goes for a nanny versus an au pair. This type of program works for our lifestyle, too. I love not having to deal with the hassle of drop-off and pick-up from daycare.”
For over a decade now, Andrea Riberi, single mom to 13-year-old Jacob and 11-year-old twins Gabriel and Dustin, has hosted au pairs. The Upper St. Clair, PA resident says, “The au pair program works because I need a significant amount of childcare that varies with my job. For three children, it has been much more cost effective than daycare or nannies. It is also much more convenient to have our au pairs living with us. They feel they are a part of the household and like big sisters to the boys.”
Dana and Walker Lockhart of Seattle have hosted three au pairs since 2009 to care for their 5-year-old sons Oliver and Finlay and brand new baby. “With twin boys in Kindergarten and an infant at home, it was hard to swallow the cost of the double-tuition for after-school care and full-time infant care. It has been a huge relief to know there is a less expensive option. When you factor in the annual program fees, the weekly stipend, and other expenses (education, car insurance, and food), we are still paying at least 30% less then what we would be paying otherwise.”
Parents, how are you keeping your childcare costs in control?
Tuesday 29 January 2013
Au pairs: employment law
Not what you're looking for? ↓
Au pairs usually live with the family they work for, are unlikely to be classed as a worker or an employee and aren’t entitled to the National Minimum Wage.
They’re treated as a member of the family they live with and get ‘pocket money’ instead - usually about £70 to £85 a week.
Workers and employees have different rights, eg the right to the National Minimum Wage and paid holidays.
Au pairs may have to pay Income Tax and National Insurance, depending on how much pocket money they get.
An au pair isn’t classed as a worker or an employee if most of the following apply:
they’re a foreign national living with a family in the UK
they’re an EU citizen or have entered the UK on a Youth Mobility Visa or student visa
they’re here on a cultural exchange programme
they’ve got a signed letter of invitation from the host family that includes details of their stay, eg accommodation, living conditions, approximate working hours, free time, pocket money
they learn about British culture from the host family and share their own culture with them
they have their own private room in the house, provided free of charge
they eat their main meals with the host family, free of charge
they help with light housework and childcare for around 30 hours a week, including a couple of evenings babysitting
they get reasonable pocket money
they can attend English language classes at a local college in their spare time
they’re allowed time to study and can practise their English with the host family
they sometimes go on holiday with the host family and help look after the children
they can travel home to see their family during the year
Example
Gina has come to the UK from France to learn English. She lives with her host family and takes part in family events like days out and holidays. She has her meals with the family and does light housework and childcare for about 5 hours a day. She babysits a couple of times a week.
Gina has 2 free days every week. She studies English at a local college 2 afternoons a week. Last year she spent 3 weeks in France visiting her own family and also went on holiday with her host family.
Gina is neither a worker nor an employee. She gets £75 a week pocket money and doesn’t pay tax or National Insurance.
Nursery ratios raised 'to improve standards'
The government says mandatory staff ratios are tighter in England than in much of Europe
Nurseries and childminders in England are to be allowed to look after more children, in a package ministers say will improve quality and cut costs.
The ratio of children to carers can be raised, but only if carers' qualifications meet new standards.
Children's Minister Liz Truss said the proposals would make more childcare places available and reduce costs for parents in the "long term".
Critics warn the change in ratios could actually compromise quality of care.
They also predict the changes - which are due to come into force in the autumn - will be unpopular with parents and are unlikely to reduce the overall costs of childcare.
Statutory ratios for carers per child vary depending on age and setting. Ratios for two-year-olds are set to rise from four children per adult to six children per adult, and for ones-and-under to rise from three children per adult to four children per adult.
Ratios for three-year-olds and over would remain at eight or 13 children per adult, depending on whether a qualified graduate was present.
Ms Truss says the changes will bring the UK in line with countries such as France and Sweden. England's higher ratios lead to higher costs for parents and lower pay for staff, she says.
Ms Truss told the BBC the proposals were about raising standards and only those nurseries that hired staff with higher qualifications would be able to take on more children.
"It will make it higher quality, more available and more affordable. It will take time to recruit new people and expand nurseries. In the long term it will be more affordable," she said.
Britain has some of the highest childcare costs in the world, with many mothers with two or more children saying it does not make financial sense to work.
An earlier report by Ms Truss suggested the average family spends 27% of their income on childcare.
Ms Truss said childcare professionals should be better qualified in the UK.
"When parents hand their child over to the care of a childminder or nursery, they are not just entrusting them with their child's physical safety, they are also entrusting their child's brain," she said
"With this in mind, it is no longer acceptable that childcare professionals are not required to have a GCSE grade C or above in English and maths."
This will apply to new nursery staff only, however.
'Very difficult'
Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg said the plans to increase the ratios would undermine the quality of childcare in the UK.
"I think this is one area where we've actually got something to teach other countries.
"If you look at France, there's actually quite a big public debate about whether they've got this right. I don't think you can compare the situation with Sweden where they have very, very generous parental leave so very few young babies are in these sorts of settings."
Kent-based nursery manager Josie Lait is sceptical about the plans, saying fewer adults would jeopardise the quality of care and the safety of children.
"I feel it isn't realistic to change the ratios because the quality will go down dramatically.
"And if you have people who are better qualified, costs will go up, so how will parents benefit?
"I wouldn't want to enforce it [new ratios] myself, I wouldn't want my setting to change."
Anand Shukla, from national childcare charity Daycare Trust, said: "No matter how well qualified the members of staff, there are practical considerations when you increase the number of children that they have to look after," he said.
"For one person to look after six two-year-olds, for one person to talk to six two-year-olds, to help their language development, we think is going to be very difficult."
National Day Nurseries Association chief executive Purnima Tanuku welcomed the commitment made by the government to improve childcare but said the "quality of childcare and early education must not be sacrificed".
She said: "Many parents do not want an increase in the number of children nursery staff are allowed look after. They are worried it will have a negative impact on the individual attention and care their child receives."
Anne Longfield, chief executive of children's charity and nursery provider 4Children, said: "The welfare of the child must be our first concern throughout, but with highly qualified early-years teachers and a better inspection regime, there is an opportunity to review current arrangements and provide simpler information for parents and better incentives for providers to concentrate on what matters - children."
In Wales, the maximum number of children a child minder can care is six children under eight years of age. Of those six children, no more than three may be under five years of and of those three children, normally no more than two may be under 18 months of age.
In Welsh nurseries, there should be one adult to three children under two years, one adult to four children aged two years and one adult to eight children aged three to seven years.
Thursday 24 January 2013
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Sunday 20 January 2013
I couldn't survive without my live-in housekeeper
Prepare to be enraged as one lady of modest income who hasn't flicked a duster in ten years confesses...
By SHONA SIBARY
Let's get the list of confessions out of the way. I haven’t picked up a bottle of bleach for nearly ten years.
I haven’t so much as cleaned a toilet or mopped a floor since 2001. I never wash or iron my family’s clothes. I can’t remember the last time I made my own bed — or any others in the house, come to that.
I don’t dust, won’t vacuum and never empty the bins. Oh, and I’m a mother of four.
Domestic bliss: Shona Sibary with her housekeeper Sophie at her home in Surrey
No, I don’t inhabit a grubby hovel, surrounded by piles of dust and rotting rubbish. In fact, my house is spotless.
And that’s because I have a little secret. There is a third person in my marriage. Or at least, a second woman under the marital roof.
Although my husband and I are far from rich, we employ a live-in housekeeper who does all those menial tasks for me. I have sub-contracted all the housework — lock, stock and feather duster — to another woman, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Having worked my way through myriad different domestic solutions over the past decade — including live-in au pair girls; expensive Brazilian cleaners; gap year students; and somebody who rented our spare bedroom in exchange for running the occasional duster over the living room table — I have now settled on Sophie, our 29-year-old live-in French housekeeper.
With four children under 13, no extended family in the UK, and a husband who struggles to change a lightbulb, I realised I need so much help that only a full-time employee would suffice.
And before you all start shouting at once, it’s not as if I’m lounging around on the sofa all day in my dressing gown, only moving to lift my feet so that Sophie can manoeuvre the vacuum cleaner under my slippers. I have a deadline-driven job as a writer and 1,001 other demands clamouring for my time and attention.
No time for a tidy: Of 2,000 families surveyed a third said they were too busy to do chores in the home or garden
What’s more, it seems I’m not alone.
According to a survey by Churchill Insurance last week, relying heavily on domestic staff is no longer a preserve of the wealthy or deeply old-fashioned. In fact, results showed that thousands of UK families cannot run without home help.
Even in these straitened times, we are paying other people to do our chores for us. Of the 2,000 families surveyed, a third admitted that while it’s a huge squeeze on their finances, they simply don’t have time to look after their own homes and gardens.
‘Hired help is the new status symbol for middle England,’ a Churchill spokesman said. ‘With millions working long hours, domestic help is increasingly seen as a necessity to ensure a good work-life balance.’
You may or may not agree with them. Certainly, not everyone can afford hired help. I know I have many friends who are slaves to their housework.
‘Hired help is the new status symbol for middle England. With millions working long hours, domestic help is increasingly seen as a necessity to ensure a good work-life balance’
But here’s the strange thing: even though some of them could well afford domestic help, they are determined to do all the chores themselves in some weird masochistic urge to prove their self-worth.
All I can say to them is: ‘more fool you’. Sneer all you like, but I’m convinced I’ve discovered the secret to a more harmonious life.
It was after my third child, Monty, now eight, was born that it hit me like a ten-ton truck that if ‘having it all’ meant juggling a career and family life while keeping a lovely home and any semblance of sanity, then I needed to hire someone to assist me in the more mundane matters of daily life.
Back then, my husband Keith — like many men — didn’t have a clue what it took for me to manage work, children, ironing, laundry and all the other endless chores that were apparently ‘my domain’.
I’m sure he thought some kind of sock fairy balled his socks into pairs every night and put them into his underwear drawer. But he certainly noticed when my levels of irritation at having to do so much simmered over into furious indignation. Now we have none of that. So I can also thank Sophie for saving my marriage.
I know there are many who will think employing a live-in housekeeper a shameful extravagance — a bit Upstairs Downstairs (even if we live in a five-bedroom house in the Surrey commuter belt, rather than in a stately home in the shires). But, actually, it works out cheaper than employing a cleaner by the hour.
I found Sophie through an online agency and I interviewed her over Skype, the online videophone service. She was smart, spoke brilliant English and seemed to be just what we were looking for.
Hung up on household chores: Millions now consider a cleaner essential for a good work-life balance
She now lives with us rent-free in the spare room, gets all her food, and costs me £180 a week for doing around 40 hours of work a week — everything from general household chores to the slightly more gruesome task of picking up dog mess off the lawn.
She’ll drive the children to school if I ask her, and has even been known to come and pick us up from a party at midnight if we’ve had too much to drink. She does laundry, ironing, food shopping and babysitting.
In short, she is indispensable. And while it’s a constant struggle to afford to pay her, I justify it on the basis that she frees up my time to earn the money we need for all the other huge outgoings we have hanging over us. Of course, it’s not always easy having a stranger living in your home, but it’s a small price to pay for the amount of assistance she gives me.
The upside is that there’s always someone around to sign for parcels, let in the gas man and hold the fort if an emergency crops up, like having to whizz to A&E with an injured child.
But it doesn’t stop with Sophie. Whisper it quietly, but we have a gardener, too: a lovely lady with a pink wheelbarrow who comes once a fortnight to mow the lawn and weed the bushes.
Yes, I could spend hours of my weekend hacking back weeds and putting out slug pellets but when would I spend time with my children? Or find a moment to relax a bit myself — which, of course, is impossible because Sophie has Saturday and Sundays off.
Oh, I know plenty of working women manage just fine without any help at all, but I’m just not prepared to go down that route.
I’d give up everything else — including meals out and holidays abroad — to keep the helpers we have because, without them, my life would become one long relentless and demoralising slog.
And I just don’t want to become one of those embittered, resentful women who harp on about what a ‘doormat’ she is.
Besides, perhaps I’m not so squeamish at the thought of hired help because I was brought up living abroad in ex-pat communities such as the Far East and Fiji where having staff was the norm and nobody lifted a finger for themselves.
'What we do with our money is our choice, and it puzzles me when people raise an eyebrow at someone else having a cleaner, a housekeeper or an au pair. After all, nobody frowns on people for taking their car to a garage to have a service'
I’ll never forget my mother telling me that when she was a toddler, stationed in India, it took three servants to clear up when she threw food from her highchair.
The first was the Amah — the only one allowed to touch the baby; the second had the job of cleaning the furniture; and the third was only permitted to wash the floor.
It wasn’t that extreme when I was a child living in Fiji, but we still had a house-girl who lived in a hut at the bottom of the garden; a pool-cleaner; a gardener and a driver. Not bad for a family of three. And my mother didn’t even work.
Now, figures show that here in the UK we, too, are finally cottoning on to the fact that it’s acceptable to pay someone else to do our dirty work.
‘In the past year or so, I’ve seen a huge increase in the number of ordinary, hardworking people looking for some kind of live-in help,’ says Debbie Salter, managing director of Greycoat Placements, one of the country’s most high-calibre agencies placing domestic staff in private homes.
‘In the past, we were recruiting staff such as butlers, chauffeurs and housekeepers for vast country estates and shooting lodges. But there’s been a big upturn in less affluent, average people wanting to leave their house in the morning and come back to find everything done for them.
‘Time is the key factor. By delegating what they can to others, my clients can spend more time together and with their children enjoying a greater balance in their family life.’
Lifecoach Amanda Alexander, 41, specialises in work-life balance and agrees it makes sense to delegate.
‘I’d rather spend my money on paying someone to do two hours of ironing, so that I can spend that two hours playing in the park with my children’, she says. ‘But someone else might prefer to spend that money on three tickets to the cinema.
‘What we do with our money is our choice, and it puzzles me when people raise an eyebrow at someone else having a cleaner, a housekeeper or an au pair. After all, nobody frowns on people for taking their car to a garage to have a service, insisting they should learn how to service it themselves.
‘Nor have I ever heard anyone insisting that office workers clean their own offices each evening.’
I sometimes have this recurring dream where I am wandering around my house and the beds are unmade and debris from breakfast is strewn all over the kitchen. I stab my foot on a piece of Lego that nobody has picked up, and keep tripping over piles of toys lying discarded on the floor.
Then, thank God, I wake up and realise, with a shudder, that this is how my life used to be. And I look around at my now spotless house with its shiny surfaces and ordered calm and I know that my housekeeper is not a luxury, she’s, in fact, a life-saver.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2012483/I-survive-live-housekeeper.html#ixzz2IY2WbKuh
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Friday 18 January 2013
Croatia cleared for EU membership in 2013
Croatia's accession is expected to be approved later this month
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories
Pope backs Croatia's EU entry bid
Croatia country profile
Croatians waver over EU membership
Croatia has been given the go-ahead to become a member of the European Union, and is likely to join in 2013, the European Commission has said.
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he would recommend EU nations wrap up talks and prepare to greet Croatia as the 28th member state.
Talks on reforming the Croatian judiciary, a very sensitive area, had been successful, Mr Barroso said.
Croatia will be the second ex-Yugoslav country after Slovenia to join.
"The European Commission has just proposed... to close the last four chapters in the accession negotiations with Croatia," Mr Barroso said in a statement.
"Today is a historic day for Croatia and the European Union."
'Reinvigorate efforts'
Mr Barroso described the move as "a signal to the rest of south-eastern Europe".
"I... hope that Croatia's progress is an inspiration to our other partners to reinvigorate their reform efforts and to deliver to the benefit of their people."
Two other countries of the former Yugoslav federation, Montenegro and Macedonia, are currently candidates for membership.
Serbia is expected to start membership talks next year, after the arrest last month of former Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic on war crimes charges removed the biggest obstacle Belgrade faced to joining the EU.
The four outstanding chapters in Croatia's talks included the judiciary and competition issues.
Correspondents say judicial issues are especially sensitive because the last EU countries to join - Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 - failed to meet full EU standards in that area.
The EU imposed a monitoring mechanism on them to deal with the shortcomings.
Croatia applied for EU membership in 2003 and formal negotiations began in 2005.
But the BBC's Mark Lowen, reporting from Zagreb, says progress was marred by initially sluggish co-operation with the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, as government officials appeared slow to hand over documents relating to the 1990s war of independence.
Corruption and organised crime have also dented the country's image, he adds.
EU leaders are expected to approve Croatia's accession at a summit on 23-24 June.
Wednesday 16 January 2013
Here at Unique Au pairs we are just updating our website this week.
We will be offering two new services. Housekeepers and Elderly companions. Check out our website soon for more information.
We are also offering a placement guarantee for 3,6,9 and 12 months at a small additional cost.
Well thank you for reading our blog.
We will be offering two new services. Housekeepers and Elderly companions. Check out our website soon for more information.
We are also offering a placement guarantee for 3,6,9 and 12 months at a small additional cost.
Well thank you for reading our blog.
Saturday 12 January 2013
Au pairs: employment law
Au pairs usually live with the family they work for, are unlikely to be classed as a worker or an employee and aren’t entitled to the National Minimum Wage.
They’re treated as a member of the family they live with and get ‘pocket money’ instead - usually about £70 to £85 a week.
Workers and employees have different rights, eg the right to the National Minimum Wage and paid holidays.
Au pairs may have to pay Income Tax and National Insurance, depending on how much pocket money they get.
An au pair isn’t classed as a worker or an employee if most of the following apply:
• they’re a foreign national living with a family in the UK
• they’re an EU citizen or have entered the UK on a Youth Mobility Visa or student visa
• they’re here on a cultural exchange programme
• they’ve got a signed letter of invitation from the host family that includes details of their stay, eg accommodation, living conditions, approximate working hours, free time, pocket money
• they learn about British culture from the host family and share their own culture with them
• they have their own private room in the house, provided free of charge
• they eat their main meals with the host family, free of charge
• they help with light housework and childcare for around 30 hours a week, including a couple of evenings babysitting
• they get reasonable pocket money
• they can attend English language classes at a local college in their spare time
• they’re allowed time to study and can practise their English with the host family
• they sometimes go on holiday with the host family and help look after the children
• they can travel home to see their family during the year
They’re treated as a member of the family they live with and get ‘pocket money’ instead - usually about £70 to £85 a week.
Workers and employees have different rights, eg the right to the National Minimum Wage and paid holidays.
Au pairs may have to pay Income Tax and National Insurance, depending on how much pocket money they get.
An au pair isn’t classed as a worker or an employee if most of the following apply:
• they’re a foreign national living with a family in the UK
• they’re an EU citizen or have entered the UK on a Youth Mobility Visa or student visa
• they’re here on a cultural exchange programme
• they’ve got a signed letter of invitation from the host family that includes details of their stay, eg accommodation, living conditions, approximate working hours, free time, pocket money
• they learn about British culture from the host family and share their own culture with them
• they have their own private room in the house, provided free of charge
• they eat their main meals with the host family, free of charge
• they help with light housework and childcare for around 30 hours a week, including a couple of evenings babysitting
• they get reasonable pocket money
• they can attend English language classes at a local college in their spare time
• they’re allowed time to study and can practise their English with the host family
• they sometimes go on holiday with the host family and help look after the children
• they can travel home to see their family during the year
Example
Gina has come to the UK from France to learn English. She lives with her host family and takes part in family events like days out and holidays. She has her meals with the family and does light housework and childcare for about 5 hours a day. She babysits a couple of times a week.
Gina has 2 free days every week. She studies English at a local college 2 afternoons a week. Last year she spent 3 weeks in France visiting her own family and also went on holiday with her host family.
Gina is neither a worker nor an employee. She gets £75 a week pocket money and doesn’t pay tax or National Insurance.
Gina has come to the UK from France to learn English. She lives with her host family and takes part in family events like days out and holidays. She has her meals with the family and does light housework and childcare for about 5 hours a day. She babysits a couple of times a week.
Gina has 2 free days every week. She studies English at a local college 2 afternoons a week. Last year she spent 3 weeks in France visiting her own family and also went on holiday with her host family.
Gina is neither a worker nor an employee. She gets £75 a week pocket money and doesn’t pay tax or National Insurance.
Neighbours must help elderly more - Norman Lamb
People should do more to help elderly neighbours and ease the pressure on care homes, the care minister has said.
Greater community support would prevent pensioners living a "dismal existence" and going into care unnecessarily, said Norman Lamb.
He told the Daily Telegraph local councils should be helped to rebuild a "neighbourly resilience".
He also said a deal to cap personal spending on care fees would be unveiled in coming weeks.
The cap was a key recommendation of the government-appointed Dilnot Commission report into care in England, which said it should be set at between £25,000 and £50,000, with £35,000 the fairest figure.
But when the social care white paper was published during the summer, there was no commitment on the cap. However, it is understood that in recent weeks senior members of the government have begun discussing the merits of a cap again.
But Mr Lamb warned that any new cap was "not a panacea", and more needed to be done to prevent so many elderly people going into care at all.
He also warned that a limit "does not remove all financial pressures", saying that people would still have to pay for the residential component of living in a home.
Too many pensioners are being pushed into care when more could be done to keep them at home, living independent lives, said Mr Lamb.
"We all have a part to play. In this way, we can make the system sustainable, and it can be a more decent society, a less neglectful society than we sometimes experience where we just expect the state to do everything," he said.
"With the right support and the right community resilience, and a rebuilding of the neighbour support that used to be there, more people could stay in their own homes for longer.
"We have lost the extended family because families have become dispersed. We need to rebuild that neighbourly resilience that helps people stay independent.
"If someone is living on their own never seeing anyone, that is a dismal existence, and it often ends up with it all collapsing and them going into a care home."
Local authorities should play their part, he said, pointing to a system in Leeds where residents, including the elderly, can control public money to adapt their homes to help them live independently.
Childcare costs 'keep many in poverty' - Barnardo's
High childcare costs will make it "impossible" for many UK families to work their way out of poverty under new welfare reforms, a charity has warned.
A report by Barnardo's says some single parents with two pre-school children will "gain nothing" from working longer hours and could "have to pay" to do so.
The universal credit benefit system due this year will replace a number of existing working-age benefits.
Ministers said the changes would "make millions of people better off".
Children aged three and four, and many two-year-olds from the poorest families, are entitled to 15 hours of free early years education in the UK.
But in its Paying to Work report, Barnardo's - the UK's largest children's charity - suggests that parents trying to increase their hours face paying for childcare while simultaneously having their benefits reduced, and starting to pay tax.
This combination, it says, "will potentially leave some parents with very little money left over".
'Pay to work'
The report claims that a single parent with two pre-school children, who tries to work more than 15 hours a week on the national minimum wage of £6.19 an hour, will "gain nothing from working more hours".
"Lone parents with two pre-school children will potentially have to pay to go to work," it adds.
Those working more than 23 hours a week - after which national insurance is deducted - could effectively end up paying 28p per hour to work.
In London, where childcare is more expensive than average, every hour of extra work could cost a parent 91p, according to the report.
Working more than 28 hours per week, when income tax is also deducted, could cost a single parent of two pre-school children up to 72p per additional working hour.
And London-based parents will pay £1.61 per hour more than they earn if they work 28 hours or more, the charity warns.
Where a lone parent has just one pre-school child, the incentives to work longer hours are still "relatively low", the report claims. For each extra hour worked between 16 and 24 on the minimum wage, a parent will potentially gain just £1.10.
Barnardo's report comes amid a series of government pledges marking the midway point of the coalition - including a promise to help with the expense of childcare.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Barnardo's chief executive Anne Marie Carrie welcomed government support on childcare costs - which she said was the "single biggest barrier to raising children out of child poverty, and to people progressing on in work".
However, she warned that changes introduced under the Universal Credit system would not help the poorest "strivers" for whom "work doesn't pay".
'Work, not hand-outs'
She also urged the government to raise the proportion of childcare costs parents could claim back from 70% to 80%.
"If we want the poorest parents to be genuinely able to work their way out of poverty, then they must be able to afford the costs of childcare. This is why we're calling on the government to provide more help to the most disadvantaged families".
Responding to the report, a spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: "Universal credit will make millions of people better off, including 700,000 lone parents.
"We're also changing the rules so that people can access childcare support when they are working only a handful of hours - around 100,000 more families will be able to take up work because of this change."
Universal credit - being introduced by Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith this year - aims to simplify the welfare system by replacing a number of existing working-age benefits, including the income-based jobseeker's allowance, income-related employment support allowance, housing benefit, working tax credit, child tax credit and income support.
Millions of existing claimants will be transferred onto the new system over a period of about four years, with the expectation that most people will apply for benefits and manage them online.
Are you finding childcare costs too expensive?
Wednesday 9 January 2013
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