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About Quality Care
The purpose of this guide is to help you find quality care for your child. But what is quality? How do you recognize it when you see it?
Start with a licensed facility. Because requirements for a licensed child care are minimal and basic, the quality of licensed child care covers a wide range. Licensing evaluates health and safety, but a quality facility will go beyond that. See page 6 for further discussion of licensing requirements.
Any child care facility should be safe and child-proofed. The provider should have health, illness and injury procedures so children are kept safe and as disease-free as possible. Procedures should be in place to keep up with the latest information in these areas.
Research shows us that quality is indicated when there are fewer children to each adult so each child can receive individual attention.
The caregiver should be consistent--that is, there should be low turnover at the child care facility.
Staff development and training enhance quality in a child care setting. The caregivers should be warm, caring individuals who truly like to be with, and who understand, children.
The environment should be appealing to children and should be set up to match the ages of the children in care.
A quality facility is one where children are involved; where activities, toys and schedules are developmentally-appropriate--matched to the ages and individual needs of the children.
Parental involvement is another sign of quality. Parents should feel involved in the program--they should feel that they are partners with their caregiver.
One way the entire field of child care looks at quality is to encourage centers and family child care homes to become accredited. National associations have written quality standards which go beyond licensing. If your center or child care home is accredited, it means the facility has met these national quality standards. Ask about accreditation when you interview at centers and homes. Encourage your current provider to become accredited.
When a provider has training in Early Childhood Education or Child Development, that provider is better prepared to interact with children, has more knowledge about how children grow and develop, and has a more professional approach to caregiving. As a result of recent legislation, it is now a requirement that anyone licensed as a child care provider must complete fifteen hours of CPR, health care and first aid training. Additionally, all teachers in child care centers must complete a minimum of 12 college units in Early Childhood Education. Many providers are recognizing the importance of training, and parents are learning to look for it.
Should you be concerned about smoking in a child care setting? YES! Smoky air is harmful to children. The smoke from one cigarette contains more than 4,000 chemicals including tar, nicotine, arsenic, formaldehyde, and cyanide.
Children who breathe smoke are more likely to have chest colds, ear infections, and pneumonia because smoke attacks and weakens the body's ability to fight infections. If your child or infant can smell smoke, he/she is breathing smoke.
The State of California has passed "Clean Indoor Air" laws that protect children's health. These laws prohibit smoking near children in all child care environments.
The quality of any child care center or home rests with the people who care for your child and the trusting relationship that develops between them. Children learn to care for, believe in and depend on the adults who care for them. Consistency of caregivers gives children the foundation for successful relationships in their adult life. They learn to trust others, and so trust themselves.
Seventy to eighty percent of your child care fees go to pay the wages of the people caring for your child. Even though child care seems expensive, the rates you pay do not cover the full cost of quality care. Ultimately, the full cost is subsidized by the caregivers through their low wages. This leads to caregivers quitting child care because they cannot live or support their own families on $9.53 per hour, or $19,822 annually, the average wage paid for entry-level caregivers/teachers in Marin County. When caregivers leave, children who have become attached to them suffer, and the level of quality goes down.
Finding out about employee benefits that can help pay for child care; encouraging their employers to adopt family benefits; financially supporting child care in the community; and encouraging lawmakers to pass comprehensive child care policies.
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