RTÉ Investigates ‘Behind Closed Doors’

Recent media attention on quality in early learning care settings may have raised some questions and worries for parents regarding their child’s care.

Barnardos has free resources for parents that will support you in consulting with your current early learning and care provider, and in choosing a childcare service if you are selecting childcare centre for your child for the first time.

Some of the suggested questions to ask an early learning and care setting:

• How do you ensure that each child is responded to quickly if they need attention, especially if they are crying?
• How do you support my child to make choices throughout the day?
• How do you match the routines of the service to my child’s routines?
• In what ways are parents involved in the setting?
• In what ways does the setting promote a strong sense of identity and belonging for everyone?

Some of the features to consider in choosing a quality service:

• Children’s Rights – children should be able to have a say, play, make choices, be treated with respect, have their needs met, be nurtured, educated, and well cared for.
• Relationships – relationships are vital for children’s development and wellbeing, children should have a main caregiver, (usually called a key person or worker) that can provide a secure and trusting relationship for your child.
• Environment - the learning environment (indoors and outdoors) should be well planned, safe, and accessible and offer children a variety of opportunities for play and rest.
• Management – the quality of management impacts directly on children’s and parents’ experiences. Quality indicators include; good policies and procedures are available and implemented, there is clear and open communication at all times, staff are well supported, parents are encouraged to become actively involved.
  
  

This free booklet will help parents make decisions about the best early learning and care setting for their child. It has detailed information about why quality really matters in the early years and looks at how young children learn and what they need in order to be able to learn best.

For more information DOWNLOAD the Quality Early Years Care and Education ebook.

Early Years Settings

Barnardos is committed to ongoing learning and development to support the enhancement of knowledge and skills and quality services to achieve positive outcomes for children and families. We do this by providing support, resources, training, information and practice support to professionals working with children.