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Daily Guardian Scheme
This scheme was re-introduced in 1947 for children of working mothers who are not eligible
for day nursery accommodation for their pre- school age children. So far there has been no
difficulty in finding a suitable number of women to undertake daily care of children who are
taken to them and recovered from them by their parents each day.
Proper safeguards are established for the welfare of such children and a written copy of the
obligations of parents and daily guardians is given to each of the parties to the agreement to
ensure that they are known. While the authority acts as an agent between parent and guardian,
the actual placing is the responsibility of the parents. The scheme works easily. The children
are seldom moved again after being accepted by a guardian unless the mother gives up work.
The main reasons for using the scheme are financial ones.
Health visitors are responsible for the approval of guardians for registration and for
periodic visiting of children placed in their care. No person is registered if there is any doubt
that the rules of the scheme will be followed and that a good standard of care can be maintained
It follows, therefore, that some applicants for registration are rejected and the authority is not
involved if those rejected accept children for daily minding. Guardians are paid one shilling a
day for each child minded (not exceeding two children) irrespective of what payment the parent
may make to the guardian. During the year a larger number of children have been minded for a
greater number of days.