Maintaining a High Quality Child Care Service

Continuing to provide a high quality Child Care Service in these tough economic times, without blowing the budget…

The current economic (and political) environment probably hasn’t directly affected too many services just yet but the possibility of reducing occupancies and rising costs is very real. There are a number of ways your child care centre service can prepare and adapt to these changes but an effective method is to ask yourself: does my child care service meet the needs of the community and provide a satisfying work environment for my staff? If it’s been a while since you have asked these questions then do it today!

Your child care service needs to review important issues that can have a significant impact on the way your centre is perceived in the community. This basic assessment shouldn’t cost you anything in dollar terms, but the information obtained will be invaluable. The results of your assessments should then be distributed, shared and discussed with all staff so that they and the child care centre as a whole can benefit.

Guardian Childcare Alliance suggests breaking your assessment into three categories – Community, Staff and Families – and asking questions like these…

Community

  • Other centres – what services do they provide, what do they charge etc. Do you network with other local centres and refer enquiries to each other?
  • Schools – when did you last meet the Principal of your local school? Does your school readiness program compliment local schools?
  • Retail precincts – do you know local business owners? Where appropriate, are they happy to promote your service?
  • Community services – (play groups, infant community health centres etc) how often do you visit or participate?

Staff

  • Staff room – is your staff room truly dedicated to the staff (i.e. not an extra storage room) and what simple things can you do to improve break times for staff?
  • Additional training - have you got a quality in-service program in place for staff, funding for eligible staff, other specialist speakers visiting staff meetings?
  • Social gathering – how about a staff BBQ for Easter? When was the last time you got together for a meal and a few drinks?
  • Team building events – structured team building events can produce tremendous results without spending too much money or time?
  • Can your 2IC step up confidently when Co-ordinator is away? - how does the service operate without the boss?

Families

  • How does your centre rate on a parent checklist? – if you cannot get friends or family to give you an opinion then role-play with staff may help
  • How is the foyer and parent information area? – is it welcoming, music playing, uncluttered etc?
  • Parent committee - should you encourage a parent committee to provide parent participation?
  • Directional signage from the car park – is your office/reception easily identified by new enquiries?
  • How is the phone being answered? – if the co-ordinator can’t answer the phone, how will a new enquiry be handled?
  • Internet presence – is your service easily found on the internet?

Once you’ve compiled your responses, you can then ask these questions…

  • is there anything I need to do differently?
  • does my service have a clear differentiator to other similar services in the community?
  • does the community know about my clear differentiator, and what can I do more effectively to get the message out?
  • if unemployment rises sharply in the community how will I adapt?

Addressing these issues will help your child care service ride out the economic challenges that present themselves. However failure to adapt to changes in the early childhood and local community will cost you dearly as families and staff closely watch their wallets, working conditions and outcomes for their children.

We are all in for new experiences over the coming months with CCMS, regulation review, wage reviews and ongoing economic stress in the community. In these tough times monitoring and enhancement should cost you very little in monetary terms, but can offer big benefits by helping you run a better childcare business while playing a vital role for families and your community.

Over the years, Guardian Childcare Alliance has built a reputation as one of the best child care management advisory companies in Australia. Our childcare centres thrive on the quality of our people and child care centre services and our ability to deliver an educational, caring and nurturing environment for children in our care. Guardian also offers child care consultants to assist current day care centre owners or prospective investors with daycare management systems and advice. And if you would like to join the Guardian team, check out our dedicated child care centre jobs and careers website.