There are several ways that parents and carers can continue to access childcare during the national lockdown restrictions.

Early years settings and childminders remain open, and you can continue to use these settings as normal.

You can access other childcare activities (including wraparound care) where reasonably necessary to enable parents to work, seek work, attend education or training, or for the purposes of respite care for carers.

Nannies will be able to continue to provide services, including in the home.

Parents are able to form a childcare bubble with one other household for the purposes of informal childcare, where the child is aged 13 or under.

Some households will also be able to benefit from being in a support bubble, which allows single adult households to join another household.

A support bubble is a close support network between a household with only one adult in the home (known as a single-adult household) and one other household of any size.

This is called making a ‘support bubble’.

Once you’re in a support bubble, you can think of yourself as being in a single household with people from the other household. It means you can have close contact with that household as if they were members of your own household.

Some youth services are able to continue, such as 1-1 youth work and support groups, but most youth clubs and groups will need to cease for this period.