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Monday, 21 March 2011 16:00
A Parent’s Guide to Quality Child Care
Written by Pediatric Associates of Auburn
When you approach someone about keeping your child, there are several facts you must keep in mind to ensure their safety. Most caregivers are honest and forthcoming, but we all know that accidents can happen, even with the best of intentions.
To start, you must understand that there are many types of child care, including private sitters (your child in your home), in-home child care (your child and others or your child in another home), part-time child care (programs limited to part-day), full-time child care, and, for the older children, after school care. Centers are financed in many ways, including being state-owned and run, freestanding, affiliated with another entity, non-profit, or for-profit.
Next, it is important to realize the role of the Child Care Services Division of the Department of Human Resources of Alabama. This agency attempts to ensure that child care providers (both in-home and facility-based) meet certain minimum standards of safety and quality. Their standards have been reviewed by experts and are routinely updated. Please see their website for more information (http://www.dhr.state.al.us/page.asp?pageid=255).
It is important to know that it is against the law to keep unrelated children in your home more than 4 hours in a 24 hour period (regardless of whether or not payment is involved) without licensing from DHR. In-home child care is common, but without licensure there is no assurance that basic safety measures are being followed. A home might seem safe, but a quick glance at the minimum standards document will give you an idea of the complexity of the licensing process (http://www.dhr.state.al.us/large_docs/DayCareHomes.pdf).
For facilities, licensure is mandated for freestanding entities. However, a facility operated within a church, can file for an exemption from licensure. However, some centers exempt from these standards choose to follow them and should be recognized. You should ask your center or providers if this has been done or is being considered. If you would like to view the minimum standards for day care centers, you can access this document via the web address given above.
Furthermore, regardless of how it is financed, it is important to know that quality child care is expensive. Some centers choose to not only follow DHR’s minimum standards, but choose to undergo accreditation from a national agency such as NAEYC (www.naeyc.org) or NAC (www.naccp.org). Even at minimum, a facility must hire and maintain safe (through mandatory background checks through the ABI/FBI), educated (by mandatory training), and motivated employees, and must pay them accordingly.
Finally, you should know what your children are being taught. Learning begins at birth, and this should be supported by structured lesson plans for all ages. Some centers integrate religious ideals into their curriculum, and some are strictly secular. Some centers adhere to national standards for early childhood education, and some are more free form. Again, asking the right questions is the key to knowing how your child’s care will function.
Here is a sample list of topics to use when evaluating/interviewing a provider: Director, funding, qualifications (teachers, director), licsensure (DHR, national), accreditation, ratios (student:teacher), lesson plans, menus, student progression (moving up), outdoor facilities, pick-up policies, etc.
Hopefully, after reading this information, you will feel a little more informed about this topic and better equipped to ask the right questions of your caregivers.
Pediatric Associates of Auburn
At Pediatric Associates of Auburn, our board certified pediatricians, Doctors Freeman, Royal, and Stubblefield, along with our staff are committed to providing accessible and quality healthcare to infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. We offer routine well child visits, sports physicals, in-office laboratory services, same day acute visits for sick children and many more convenient services.
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