24 Hour Day Care People

Another place we visited yesterday was one of Helsinki’s 10 — nine public, one private — 24 hour day care centers. Of course it’s not really “day” care if it’s provided at night. But the basic philosophy here is that some people have to work at night — shift workers at hospitals, people working in public services doing transportation or police work, people working at the airport, etc. — and some of those people have kids, too. The exact details of how the center works were a bit complicated and not terribly interesting, but it’s a great example of Finnish public policy’s strong commitment to meeting family policy needs.