Holidays start with lack of care for children

In a couple of days, school holidays start in Belgium. For parents who are both at work, it’s become increasingly difficult to find day care for the younger children. There’s an increasing demand, while the number of volunteer youth leaders diminishes. Older youth prefer paid student jobs to volunteering.

Besides youth camps like scouting or sports, ‘speelpleinwerking’ (playground activities) is very popular in Flanders. During holidays, parents can drop off their kids in the morning and pick them up after work. In 2025, nearly 200,000 children participated, averaging 56,000 per day. More and more parents use the system and demand longer hours, from early morning till the evening.

Until recently, there were many private initiatives, working with volunteers, typically youngsters between 16 and 24 years old. But the activities of this group of youngsters are changing. They have their own holiday plans, and there are lots of music festivals to go to. And most of all, more and more, they want to earn money during their holidays. So, instead of volunteering, they prefer student jobs.

This resulted in a gradual change in the ‘speelpleinwerking’. There are fewer private initiatives, municipalities are taking over their role. ​ And the youngsters are offered contracts as student workers rather than as volunteers. In 2025, already more than half of the initiatives worked with student workers. And even so, there aren’t enough people. The limited capacity of the initiatives limits the number of children accepted.

The sector regrets this shift towards more paid work. This also leads to higher costs for parents. On average, 6,88 euros per day has to be paid by the parents.

_{#FlandersNewsService | © BELGA PHOTO THIERRY ROGE}