Many families who are looking for child care services understand the importance of finding and securing the best early preschool education and care. While it may seem to be a simple task if you’re a first-time parent who has no knowledge of child care providers, it can be difficult to determine what high-quality care looks like.
Are you sure it’s the brand new purpose-built center with the latest equipment? Are you the charming family day care centre across the street? Perhaps it’s the well-worn and dependable community center with staff members who have been around for years?
It is likely that that high-quality child care may appear like any of these and you as well as your child will be the most reliable judge of what quality means for your specific family. As a general rule keep in mind that regardless of the type of care you pick and in a top-quality environment your child will feel at ease, secure and safe and be able to participate in a broad variety of learning opportunities. As parents, you must be comfortable interacting with the staff and be confident that the wellbeing of your child is the top essential concern.
How do I Identify High-Quality Child Care?
The National Quality Framework and National Quality Standards are a great way to assess the quality of child care services against the minimum standards set by government. The services that have been assessed against the latest standard must display their scores in a location that is readily accessible to families. it is definitely a good start.
In reality, your best option to assess the quality of a service is to visit and spend some time at. In this article Selecting a High-Quality Childcare from Eva Cochran, Mon Cochran and Nancy Torp from Cornell University, College of Human Ecology provides valuable tips about what to look at when you visit the facility.
The quality of care provided is not dependent on where the service is given, but the way it is delivered. It’s difficult to provide quality care in a setting that is dirty, equipment is in disrepair and toys are in short supply and there is not enough space. However, poor quality care could be – and often, it is delivered in elegantly designed environments that include all the equipment and toys your child would want.
Defining High-Quality Child Care
The definition we use of quality blends the knowledge that researchers as well as child care providers along with other families have learned with a healthy amount of common-sense which is derived from our many years of professional and personal knowledge of childcare and development of children. In our search for the most effective method to define the concept that quality has, we ended up returning to four fundamental words and phrases such as caring, tuned into respect, safe and secure.
Premium Quality Service Providers are attentive and well-tuned
The two traits work in tandem. A dependable and attentive provider is one who
- Listens and is conscious of the child’s messages including nonverbal and verbal.
- is looking for clues about the child’s feelings and takes note of the clues she sees when she engages with the child.
- The child is supervised throughout the day and doesn’t spend much time talking to other adults.
The attentive, tuned-in caregiver will not be afraid to express verbal and physical affection but isn’t too extravagant. She is able to keep one child in their arms, pay attention to the other one who is tugging on their sleeves with a question while watching an additional struggle to finish the task at hand, and then help when the child is annoyed. The person in question doesn’t need to declare that she loves children as their thoughts are evident. Their affection is evident and she spends the majority of her time interacting directly with children.
High Quality Child Care Providers are Respectful
A lot of adults are not respectful of young children. They’re not especially interested in children, and this shows in their attitude towards children. Unfortunately, according to child minding services some of those working in the field of child care fall into this category.
The assumption that has been held for a long time is that women are all children’s lovers and all women are naturally capable of be excellent child care providers. Both are false. A lot of people who are parents do not have the patience nor the capabilities to become great early childhood educators and teachers.
The ability to listen the youngest of children and recognize the ideas they’re trying to convey is essential to show respect for their ideas. Being attentive and listening displays genuine consideration of the feelings and needs of the kid. Children feel appreciated when they are given such unrestricted attention.
Respectful educators value children’s thoughts and is respectful of their opinions and shows an appreciation for children by their warm and caring behavior. Teachers and teachers who recognize children in this way generally exhibit the same respect for their parents and the people they work with.