UniSpace Sunderland has launched a conference crèche facility, providing onsite childcare services for parents and carers that wish to attend events at UniSpace.
The service was originally created by the University of Sunderland to be offered during student graduation ceremonies, but can now be provided as an optional addition to all conferences and events that take place at UniSpace.
The crèche is located within the St Mary’s Childcare Centre on City Campus, one of the five conference venue locations that UniSpace has to offer. The Ofsted-registered centre is managed by the University Childcare Service with professionally qualified staff.
“We feel this is an important step forward for us at UniSpace and one that we hope will become standard practice throughout the industry as a whole,” says Commercial Services Manager for UniSpace Sunderland, Sharon Olver. “Parents or carers that would normally have flexible working hours are often either forced to make special childcare arrangements at a considerable cost, or not attend these types of conferences at all.
“According to the ’Happy Homes and Productive Workplaces’ report, commissioned by the Working Families charity, almost two thirds of UK employees have access to flexible working hours and we see no reason why this flexibility shouldn’t be reflected in conferences and events,” Olver adds.
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