Before you return to the workforce, selecting
a good daycare for your child or children is one of the most important decisions to make.
The reason is quite obvious. Be aware that the day care
center you select will be totally responsible for your childīs safety and well
being for the 5 or 9 hours a day that you will have to leave them in the care of
the center.
No matter if you are lookig for an official daycare center
or if you are looking for a home childcare person or provider, there are various
things you should be aware of before signing up and leave your child with them
for care.
Location of the day care center
First of all, you have to think of and decide where you
would like your child to be taken care for. You may preferably select a center
as close as possible to your home, or to your job, or you may even prefer to
arange for the daycare to be done in your home. When the decision about the
childcare location is done, the next step is to start to investigate about the
availability of day care offers or day care providers in the chosen area.
Ask for references and recommendations
Ask your friends or relatives with children for
refernences and recommendations about good daycare centers or providers. This is
one of the most reliable sources you can have when collecting information about
daycare offers.
Check the references
After collecting references ans asking around with your
friends, your family and your neighbourhood, you may ask the chosen daycare
center to provide you with a reference list in order that you can contact people
on the list for confirmation of the centerīs qualification. You should also
collect information about staff turnover. The higher the rate of turnover, the
more likely it is that there might be something wrong.
Talk to the daycare staff
Do never ever place your child in a day care center
without meeting and interviewing the staff beforehand. Arrange for an
appointment to meet the director of the center or provider as well as the
caregivers that will be looking for your child personally. Feel free to ask
questions about their organisation, their standards, disciplinary procedures,
rest and feeding routines. You as a parent have not only the right to ask for
such things. It is also your obligation to make sure your child will be in good
hands. Take a look for staff members and caretakers that seem to be engaged and
enthusiastic about their job. Are they warm and caring? Their love of children
should be natural and evident in everything that they do. If you do not feel
comfortable about this point, better look somewhere else.
A quality daycare center should have a clean environment,
not too tidy because children are playing there, but clean. It should have a
good reputation, clear and solid rules and also a curriculum that includes
pyhsical activity, learning and child advancement activities, sufficiant
playtime and also quiet times and resttimes.
When you have to decide whether the daycare centers to be
shortlisted are good or not, also keep staff ratios, qualification and staff
turnover in mind. As a general rule of thumb there should be one caregiver for
every three or four children when we talk about taking care of children in baby
age. For 12 to 24 months aged toddlers there should be at least one caretaker
for every four or five kids. If the ratio falls within an acceptable range,
check if the staff qualification and your feeling about the staff is well enough
that you can accept.
Last but not least make sure that the daycare facility of
your choice is operating under a valid, non-expired licence. You may think this
is not possible, but in reality it sometimes happens. You can check the licence
validity by simply calling your local social service department.
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