Involving Parents At Day Care

Day care providers should grab every available opportunity to involve parents and welcome their input. When parents participate in a child care service it makes for a very rewarding and positive experience for all concerned including the children. You can share insights that you have gleaned from observing the child at day care and in return parents can provide a wealth of valuable information giving you a holistic picture of the child.

The opportunity to share ideas and methods about what works and otherwise regarding individual children can be achieved by this mutual cooperation. Respecting, valuing and listening by both parties enriches the day care experience for all concerned. Provider can take into account family values and beliefs whilst parents can learn much about their newly independent, interactive child from the carer. Information sharing should be ongoing and opportunities for communication should be provided formally and informally.

Staff assessment in the area of working and communicating with parents may be required in order to maximise the effectiveness of this sharing process. In order that they can communicate effectively and professionally they may need further training and guidelines. Support your staff so that they feel encouraged to participate in this process. You need to ensure enough time is allowed for parent consultation and subsequent follow ups so you may need to consider your current timetable and staffing levels. If parents have particular interests or areas of expertise e.g.storytelling or music encourage them to share it with the children as a kind of guest speaker. Parents should be able to air their grievances easily and without feeling judged via your complaints procedure. You should view complaints as constructive criticism and a means to improving your service and should be perceived as open, friendly and professional when it comes to comments. Deal with any issues immediately and thank parents for bringing them to your attention. Management should deal with more serious issues but your complaints procedure should also allow for staff to be empowered to deal with certain problems. Allow parents to offer comments anonymously via a suggestion box.

Your orientation and settling in procedure should facilitate parental involvement from the outset. Form a parent's committee so they have a collective voice thus encouraging positive interaction. Parents need a daily point of contact regarding their child so integrate a key worker system into your day care. Provide information about weekly scheduling and activities either by posting details on the noticeboard or sending out a newsletter. In order to avoid any misunderstanding or confusion you should share daily information both verbally and in writing. Have a website with a blog where you can post comments about goings on at the day care and parents can, in turn, post comments. You can include a staff page on here with photos and information.

Parental involvement in your day care can potentially provide you with untold resources heretofore untapped. Parents will be encouraged to give back if they feel valued and supported. Opening up channels of communication and sharing can avoid many misunderstandings and conflicts that are borne out of lack of information. A friendly, welcoming and open day care should be your ultimate goal. An all inclusive day care is a happy day care.

About The Author Fiona Lohrenz shares her 10 years experience of running a day care on her website where you'll also find her 'Start a ChildCare Business' DVD guide: Start A Day Care Business DVD (http://www.startchildcare.com) She can be reached at: ChildCareOnly.com (http://www.childcareonly.com)