Parent Participation At Day Care

Parental involvement and input should be welcomed by day care providers whenever offered. The rewards of this parental participation is mutually beneficial and makes for a positive experience for the children and all concerned. The provider gains a holistic picture of the child from the valuable personal information donated by the parents and in return the day care can pass along a wealth of knowledge gleaned from daily observation.

This mutual cooperation allows both parties the opportunity to share effective methods and ideas regarding working with individual children. The day care experience for all concerned is enriched by this listening, respecting and valuing of each other’s knowledge. The parents can learn so much about the socialization and interaction of their child from the carer whilst passing on their family values and beliefs to the day care. Opportunites for communication should be provided both formally and informally and information sharing should be ongoing.

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. You can encourage positive interaction by forming a parents committee so that they have allies and a collective voice. Parents need a daily point of contact regarding their child so integrate a key worker system into your day care. Use your notice board or a newsletter to provide information about weekly scheduling and activities. In order to avoid any misunderstanding or confusion you should share daily information both verbally and in writing. It is a great idea to have a website and a blog where parents can leave comments and you can update everyone regarding day care activities. You can include a staff page on here with photos and information.

Heretofore untapped resources can be accessed via parental involvement in your day care. Parents will be encouraged to give back if they feel valued and supported. Many conflicts and misunderstandings are borne out of lack of information so opening up channels of communication can avoid these. A friendly, welcoming and open day care should be your ultimate goal. Happy parents mean happy kids mean happy you!

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

Fiona Lohrenz draws on her 10 years of running a day care to write articles on all aspects of child care. She also pours this wisdom into her childcare website and has used it to produce a 'How to Start a ChildCare Business' DVD guide plus Day Care Survival Pack: www.startchildcare.com Fiona can be found at her website: www.childcareonly.com

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