In April 2018, the Alliance launched its landmark Minds Matter survey, looking at the impact of working in childcare and the early years sector on practitioners’ mental health.
More than 2,000 of you responded — including nursery managers, nursery workers and childminders — making it our biggest survey ever.
The findings revealed:
- a sector struggling with the impact of excessive paperwork and administration, financial instability due to inadequate government funding, and low pay
- that most of you were often stressed about work and that work-related mental health issues had an impact on your personal relationships
- a quarter of you were thinking about leaving the early years sector entirely.
Following the survey, we worked with the Department for Education and Ofsted on a joint Early Years Workload project to better understand and address the concerns around workload, and particularly paperwork and administration, raised in our report.
This initiative included a series of focus groups held across the country, followed by a sector-wide online survey in the spring to ensure that every single educator had the opportunity feed back their views on this important issue.
