If you really need child care urgently, ‘emergency/short-term child care service’

Did you know that if you urgently need someone to care for your young child, you can use urgent care services?

In the future, the application time for emergency care services will be shortened from 4 hours in advance to 2 hours in advance, and short-term care services will be launched with the minimum usage time reduced from 2 hours or more to 1 hour or more.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced that starting December 20, it will pilot run this emergency and short-term child care service to resolve childcare gaps in dual-income households that occur due to unexpected overtime work or business trips.

Currently, when applying for the child care service, applications are requested 4 hours before the start of the service, taking into account the travel time for the child sitter to reach the home.

However, if there is a gap in care due to unplanned business trips or overtime, it is realistically difficult to apply 4 hours in advance. Accordingly, we decided to pilot an emergency care service that shortens the service application time to 2 hours in advance so that emergency care services can be used in truly urgent situations.

Additionally, for families who only need care for a short period of time, such as going to and from school, we decided to introduce a pilot care service that reduced the minimum usage time of 2 hours to 1 hour.

For emergency and short-term child care services, an additional cost of 4,500 won per case is charged to the basic fee for each household (different by income standard), taking into account the fact that the child caretaker moves urgently, and the additional cost is borne by the user.

To apply for emergency or short-term child care services, use the child care service website (idolbom.go.kr) or the child care application. It would be a good idea to sign up for membership in advance to use it in an emergency.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family plans to increase next year's child care service support budget by 32% compared to this year and also increase the number of government-supported households.

Until now, the usage fee was differentiated depending on the income level of the user household, but starting next year, households with two or more children will receive an additional 10% of the out-of-pocket cost.

Minister of Gender Equality and Family Kim Hyun-sook said, “We have decided to pilot a more flexible child care service to meet the diverse needs of users.” “Based on the results of the pilot operation, we will ensure that parents and children can quickly receive the help they need without being embarrassed by sudden childcare gaps,”

Mary Eve of Papaya Story