On 22 April 2004 Bar Council reviewed a report on an in-home childcare scheme designed and piloted specifically for the needs of members of the New South Wales Bar Association. At the same time Bar Council authorised the publication of the results of this pilot program. It did so to spread some new and practical ideas to members which would give support to all barristers with family responsibilities. It is hoped too that this pilot program will encourage more women lawyers to consider a career at the Bar.

The pilot program was featured in outline in the winter edition of Bar News and involved 15 barristers and their families over seven months during 2003. Both male and female barristers participated in the pilot. Now that the pilot has proved successful, members of the Association have another practical choice available to manage clashing Court and childcare commitments.

With the announcement of the success of this pilot the association’s role in promoting this idea will cease. The association has merely sought to demonstrate that a new kind of childcare which was previously not available can work for the benefit of barrister members.

The pilot program was the first of its kind specifically designed for an association of professionals anywhere in Australia. The program enabled a barrister to call the engaged service provider, McArthur Management Services to obtain back up childcare in emergencies, or when regular childcare arrangements broke down. If, for example, the child’s usual carer was sick and the barrister was due in court, McArthur provided backup care within an hour of a phone call to the service. Alternatively, if the barrister was unexpectedly delayed in court or by conferences after court and was unable to collect his or her child, the assigned McArthur carer stepped in and did so and then looked after for the child until the parent arrived home.

A key component of the pilot was that the stand-in carer was familiar to the child and well acquainted with his or her particular needs. This was achieved by the barrister engaging the carer in a minimum of four hours per fortnight in a babysitting or child-centered activity.

All barrister participants in the pilot reported that it worked very well. So did Jane Smyth, a work and family consultant engaged by the Association to report on the success of the pilot. A number of the barrister participants are ready to talk to other members about the assistance that the pilot program gave them in trying to run successful practices at the Bar. These barristers are contactable through the Equal Opportunity Committee contacts mentioned at the end of this note.

The Association helped facilitate what was essentially an organised experiment by a number of members of the Association. This experiment has proved that the idea is a workable one. The Association provided some funding to Jane Smyth to review the success of the pilot program. The engagement of McArthur was done on an entirely individual and private basis by the barristers who participated in the pilot. The Association did not take any responsibility for McArthur's services. The Association has no ongoing financial commitment of any kind to running a program but members of the Association can make their own childcare choices knowing that such services now do exist.

For the future, barristers have more choice than they had before to manage the very real problems caused by conflicts in their childcare and court commitments.

Although the Bar Association has no ongoing involvement with the service, the web page will soon contain the relevant contact details for the scheme’s administrators. In the meantime, should you want further information, please contact McArthur’s direct on phone 9252 0799 or fax 9252 1399 and ask for Bernadette Dunn.