Young Working Moms Cheer... Gumi-si Secures Additional 3 Billion KRW in National Funding for 'Idolbom Service'

Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and Gyeongbuk Province Engage in Field Administration to Secure Budget

Expanding Visiting Caregivers, Reducing Waiting Time for Families Using Childcare Services

Gumi City in Gyeongbuk has made great strides in securing the national budget for next year's childcare support project, achieving a historic increase of 3 billion KRW.

Childcare Service.

Gumi, which has the largest population of children under 12 in the province, faced long waiting periods for families wanting to use childcare services and had a severely insufficient support budget compared to other cities and counties.

In response, the city visited the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Provincial Women's and Children's Policy Office several times since the beginning of the year, based on comparative data with other cities and counties, and secured 3 billion KRW in national funds. Next year, a total project budget of 7.8 billion KRW will be invested to resolve the waiting families.

Until now, even when dual-income couples and other families with childcare gaps requested care services, a shortage of caregivers made it difficult to provide smooth service support. Additionally, there was no institution for training childcare providers, making it challenging to schedule caregiver training courses annually.

On November 7, Gumi University was designated as a childcare provider training institution by Gyeongbuk Province, preparing high-quality and diverse supplementary training and development courses for about 230 childcare providers.

Furthermore, after the training and field practice for 30 newly hired caregivers at the end of November are completed, they will provide care services as qualified childcare providers next year, gradually reducing the number of families on the waiting list.

Mayor Kim Jang-ho said, “As a result of actively and promptly visiting the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and Gyeongbuk Province to explain the need for securing the childcare service budget, we were able to secure national funds. We expect this to be a great help to young dual-income families in need of childcare, and we will continue to do our best to create a childcare environment that is good for raising children.”

The visiting childcare service, which parents can trust and rely on, is a service where childcare providers visit the care location directly to provide care for children under 12 in families experiencing childcare gaps due to reasons such as dual-income work. The service is operated by the Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation of Gumi University.