PREPARING TO OPEN
By now, you will have undertaken much of the pre-planning necessary to start your project. This final section is really a checklist, together with additional resources, to make sure that you have everything you need in place. In reality, many of the tasks may overlap or you may find yourselves doing things at different times. Indeed, many of these activities will occur simultaneously with the construction stage. This section is intended as a guide and to alert you to the myriad of administrative tasks that need to be in place before you can open the doors.
- Action Plan Checklist
- The Business Plan
- Critical Path
Action Plan Checklist
Key areas to have in place:
- Functional Board of Directors
- Executive Director
- Licence
- Recruitment of Families
- Human Resource Policies and Procedures
- Financial Policies and Procedures
- Policies for Children with Special Needs
- Health and Safety Policies
- Early Learning Program(s) - Curriculum/Program approach
- Administrative Policies and Procedures
- Parent and Community Relations Plan
- Evaluation Plan
- Business Plan
- Critical path
Functional Board of Directors
From your Board if Directors planning process, you will now have:
- Incorporated
- Recruited board members
- Held official board meetings and produced minutes
- Compiled your board records indicating when board members started/ended, which committees they are serving on, etc.
- Produced a board calendar so that all board members know what is expected of them and when.
- Planned to develop a board handbook so that new directors can have access to all the information they may need.
- Developed the Operational Model
- Developed your Financial Plan
- Developed the Facility Plan
- Secured/Built/Renovated the facility
- Prepared a Business Plan
- Developed an Action Plan defining your strategies for recruitment, fee-setting, hiring staff, etc.
- Developed a Critical Path
Resources
Executive Director
The leadership in your program will be very dependent on your Executive Director. S/he will have been hired a few months prior to opening, or, in the case of new construction/extensive renovation, s/he will have been a key part of the project development committee.
Talented, committed employees - especially the Executive Director - are the greatest asset of your early learning and child care program. You need to find them and then keep them. To provide excellent leadership they need to be committed, engaged, motivated and operating at their peak performance level most of the time. They are critical to your success and the quality of your program.
Your employees are not only concerned about wages and benefits. They also want challenging and meaningful work. They need an opportunity to learn and grow. They need great co-workers, recognition, respect and a good boss.
Gillian Doherty has written a paper, Standards of Practice for Administrators/Directors of Child Care Programs, published by the Canadian Child Care Federation. It identifies the skills and abilities necessary to perform the required tasks of the position competently. It outlines the skills and abilities needed by administrators and directors in the areas of employee management; environment; governance; finances; and communications;
It is available from the Child Care Human Resources Sector Council
Where do you find this leadership?
In view of the difficulties of attracting, hiring and retaining excellent leadership for ELCC programs, there are many websites and publications devoted to discussion of this issue.
Resources
The US Department of Health and Human Services,: the Administration of Children and Family: Head Start Information and Publication Centre published "Catching Them and Keeping Them: Information Resources on How to Hire and Retain Quality Employees" by Nanette Lofaro listing a series of resources to assist employers with their recruitment endeavours.
Then there's the well-used HR Guide.com which has an endless array of resources available at http://www.hr-guide.com/
The standard recruitment methods can also be used:
- Advertise
- Headhunter
- Word of mouth
Job Description: Retrieved from Child Care Connections, Nova Scotia.
Toronto First Duty's Integration Guide contains a good description for an "operational lead" - essentially a project coordinator - for integration projects. It serves as a good guide for managerial positions which have a broader mandate than child care service delivery
A comprehensive scan of the Canadian child care workforce has been produced by the are Human Resources Sector Council and can be found at http://www.ccsc-cssge.ca/english/pdf/snapshot_e.pdf
The Child Care Human Resources Sector Council is currently undertaking a Training Strategy for the Child Care Sector aimed to recommend ways to improve the quality of and standardize approaches to child care training in Canada.
Licence
The licence will cover your program(s) and state whether the program is part-day/full-day, as well as the capacity and age ranges of the children. You will hopefully have written a letter of intent to the licensing authority many months ago.
This is probably the most important pre-opening activity. Without securing a licence you cannot operate. Allow plenty of time. Find out from the Department how long it takes; be prepared for it to take a number of weeks to conclusion. Hopefully you've been working with licensing officials all along. You've familiarized yourself with the requirements in your province or territory. Usually, they involve meeting regulations for:
- Physical space,
- Furnishings and Equipment;
- Policies and procedures e.g. behaviour management policy
- Health and Safety Procedures
- Daily Program and Nutrition Plan
- Emergency Procedures
- Documents that need to be in place, e.g.
- Approvals from health, fire and building departments
- Staff arrangements, qualifications and training documentation
- Statement of Parents' Rights and Responsibilities
Even if your province/territory does not require it, make sure that you always you're your Licence in a prominent place, together with a list of staff, their qualifications and any other useful information.
Also, don't forget that you're not just getting a licence. You're trying to put in place the best ELCC program with the highest possible quality. We would refer you again to review Quality by Design, especially the section on licensing
In addition, we suggest you review the following resources, to make sure that you have everything in place.
Resources
Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre publishes a resource on How to Start a Child Care Facility in BC (6 pp, 2006). It includes steps on planning a child care facility. This resource includes useful websites and contact information. PR-A-034 - $5.00
Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre publishes a resource on: How to Start a Child Care Facility in BC (6pp, 2006) Steps on planning a child care facility. This resource includes useful websites and contact information. (PR-A-034) - $5.00
Also Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre publishes Inform Guide, a manual for operating non-profit child care programs. It can be obtained for $5:00.
Recruitment of Children
Developing a market analysis will help you to determine whether your project is viable. It can then be included in your business plan that may be needed for funders, banks, etc.
First, you should describe the size of the potential market for services. Include number of children 0-6 within a reasonable travel distance of the program. Include the number of mothers in the workforce. Identify which demographic group has the greatest potential for recruitment. Your needs assessment (click back to section on needs assessment) will help you here.
Also, you need to identify other similar programs in the vicinity - or in your market area. Describe each program and the ways in which it competes with your proposed program. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the other programs.
Recruitment Policies
You will then be in a position to develop a Recruitment Plan. What are your mechanisms for letting parents know that the service will be available? This might include brochures, mailings to social service agencies, advertisements in the local paper, getting an article in the local paper about the merits of your proposed new service, etc.
Resources
Westcoast Childcare Resource Centre has a publication to assist you: Marketing Your Child Care Centre (2000) Develop, implement and evaluate your marketing plan. PR-A-008 - $5.00
Enrolment Forecast
Include an annual recruitment forecast projected over three years. It can be simple or you can break it out into a long-term planning forecast by program and/or age group. The important thing is to know your targets so you can make analytical assessments if you over-reach or under-reach your targets.
Enrolment Forecast
| # Children enrolled | Average Monthly Fee | Monthly Revenues | Total Annual Revenues($CAD) | |
| Year 1 | 40 | 700 | 28,000 | 336,000 |
| Year 2 | 50 | 720 | 36,000 | 432,000 |
| Year 3 | 60 | 750 | 45,000 | 540,000 |
You will already have developed your marketing and recruitment strategy. Now is the time to implement it! First make some basic decisions:
- Will you have a procedure for priority admissions? For example, will you give priority to siblings, to single parents, to children with special needs, to student parents, to community residents, etc.? Whatever you decide should be recorded as a policy.
- What will be your waiting list policy?
- Will you decide to take a waiting list on a first-come, first-served basis, or will you establish priority criteria?
- Will you decide to give the prospective child a certain amount of time to decide whether they can accept the placement?
- Have you firmly established your fee structure? If not, confirm it before you start recruitment.
- Have you established a deposit policy? Will parents have to provide one month or two months in advance, etc.?
Then you can proceed to recruit.
- Go back to your initial list of parents interested and start there
- Advertise your opening date through the channels you have identified in your plan (brochures, local newspapers, word-of-mouth, libraries, social service departments, etc)
- Set a date for a registration evening to provide parents with the opportunity to enrol their child and talk to the teachers
- Start a waiting list as soon as your program is full!
Human Resources Policies and Procedures
The following information is taken from the Human Resources Section of Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care's Management Guide reprinted here as a PDF.
The full Management Guide may be obtained from: Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, 489 College Street, Suite 206, Toronto, Ontario M6G 1A5 Tel: 416-538-0628; Fax: 416-538-6737; Toll-free: 1-800-594-7514 General enquiries by e-mail: info@childcareontario.org
Download the Human Resources Section of the Management Guide in PDF.
- Think about staffing - communicate plans to community colleges, social service agencies, employment websites, ensure community knows, and appropriate authorities, etc.
- Recruit culturally diverse staff
- Recruit staff with appropriate training for infants and children with special needs;
- Develop staff profiles and qualifications
- Organize staff orientation/staff retreat if possible
Resources
Manitoba Child Care Association: Human Resource Management Guide for Early Childhood Programs.
This comprehensive resource reflects current legislation and best employment standards within the child care industry. This manual is organized to add centre policies, updates, directives, etc. An order form can be found at: http://www.mccahouse.org/pdf/Resource-Order-Form-Aug06.pdf The cost is (Members $150.00 / $165.00 with disks (Non Members $ 300.00 / $ 330.00 with disks)
The Manitoba Child Care Association also prepares and keeps up-to-date a "Minimum Salary Guideline Scale for Group Child Care Centres with salaries by classification and also hourly rates. These are specific to labour conditions in Manitoba, but offer a good guide for other provinces/territories. The Government of Manitoba also recognizes them in their information for centres. Child Care Human Resources Sector Council (CCHRSC) is a pan-Canadian, non-profit organization that addresses pressing human resources issues in the child care sector. Their projects develop research, strategies, and tools to meet the needs of the child care workforce and achieve related goals.
The Toronto First Duty, Integration Guide is intended for community leaders, service providers, systems managers, and the front line staff who deliver early childhood services in various fields including child care, education, family support, health, and social services. It is assumed that those using the guide are already familiar with the benefits of early childhood service integration and want a primer on the process.
Financial Policies and Procedures
- Open Bank Account(s)
- Secure Insurance
- Set up Financial Record-keeping: enrolment; attendance; receivables from all sources, fee deposit system, outstanding fees list, overdue accounts, bank reconciliation;
- Accounts Payable system: invoices, credits, bills paid, cheque signing, etc.
- HR records: contracts/letters of Employment, with base salary, benefits, special entitlements, Record of Employment for terminated employees, etc.
- Set up Income Tax, CPP, EI and arrange to remit regularly to CCRA
- Set up payroll: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/business/topics/payroll/menu-e.html; TD1s for each employee; T4 system;
- Confirm parent fees
- Finalize and approve operating and start-up budgets
- Submit applications for available operating and start-up funding
- Hire Bookkeeper
- Establish policies: Purchasing/Spending policy; NSF cheque policy; Cheque signing procedures; Petty Cash;
- Content and style of Financial Statements (compared to budget); Cash Flow Forecasts;
Policies for Children with Special Needs
Inclusive Human Resource Policies for Child Care Facilities Children enrolling at your centre may have physical, mental and learning disabilities, as well as challenging behaviours. Develop a special needs procedure and behaviour guidance strategy based on best practices. Identify effective ways to coordinate resources to provide comprehensive coverage for children with special needs.
Resources
Specialink: The National Centre for Child Care Inclusion is a resource and research helpline. SpeciaLink provides personalized responses to specific questions, referrals to other organizations, and sources of help, information, and technical assistance. It also provides the SpeciaLink fact sheets, books and videos, as well as a speakers bureau. It maintains an alert network of key mainstream child care advocates across the country, who can quickly identify and respond to opportunities and threats to mainstream quality and funding. http://www.specialinkcanada.org/project/index.html
Westcoast also produces: Providing Inclusive Child Care (v2, 2005). It includes information on inclusive child care philosophy and practice as well as funding and service guidelines for the provision of inclusive care. (PR-A-028) - $5.00 To order: http://www.wstcoast.org/information/marketplace.php
Health and Safety Policies
Sample health policies and procedures are well laid out in the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care's Child Care Management Guide. Even though it is from Ontario, we have received permission to reprint here Chapter Five of the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care's Management Guide II and we believe it has broad application for the entire country.
This resource includes the following information:
- General Health Practices
- Reducing Infections and Disease
- Administering Medication
- Immunization
- Sick Children
- Special Health Care Needs
- HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B and C
- First Aid
- Safety Practices
- Fire Safety
- Emergency Plans
- Accidental Injury
- Child Maltreatment
- Playground Safety
- Serious Occurrences
- Nutrition
- Meal Planning
- Special Diets/Allergies
- Food Safety
- Breast-Feeding and Bottles
In addition, this resource includes sample policies on:
- First Aid Supplies
- Health Policies and Practices
- Playground Safety Policy
- Safety Policies and Procedures
- Nutrition Policies and Procedures
- Medical Record Form
- Emergency Consent Form
- Permission to Administer Medication
- Request for Administration of Non-prescription Medication Form
Resources
The Child Health Network has over 1,000 online resources on child health topics including: nutrition, breastfeeding, parenting and child care, special needs, environmental health and child development.
There is also a useful article called: "How to find the most trustworthy health information on the Internet".
The City of Winnipeg has produced a Guide to a Healthy Child Care Environment, an excellent reference guide used by most daycare facilities in Manitoba. The manual was developed by Environmental Health Officers, with the assistance of Medical Officers of Health and other public health professionals who are all knowledgeable of the risks associated with improperly maintained child care facilities. The manual provides information on how to minimize disease transmission and safety tips in preventing harmful accidents in all aspects of a daycare operation.
The City of Winnipeg also produces a Healthy Child Care Environment checklist
Early Learning Programs
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care has also given us permission to reprint the section of the Early Learning Program. Once again, even though it is from Ontario, we believe it has broad application in Canada. It is designed for child care centres.
It covers the following areas:
- Enrolment
- Admissions
- Attendance
- Orientation
- Children's Program
- Program Goals and Objectives
- Group Structure
- Mixed Age Groupings
- Daily Schedules and Routines
- Physical Environment
- Play Materials and Learning Opportunities
- Daily Program Plans
- Behaviour Guidance
- Incidents of Discrimination
- Communication
- Support
- Decision-Making
- Child record-keeping
- Program/curriculum statement
- Ensuring multicultural/anti-bias approach and resources
- Setting up physical environment
- Buying equipment
- Schedule of activities
- Staff meetings to finalize program approach, content, relationships and procedures
- Securing student placements
- Supply list
In addition, the guide contains a series of sample documents including:
- Enrolment policies and procedures
- Enrolment Form
- Orientation Policies and Procedures
- Family-Centre Contract Form
- Family Handbook: Table of Contents
- Program Goals and Objectives
- Behaviour Guidance Policy and Procedures
- Incidents of Discrimination Policy and Procedures
- Parent Participation Policies and Procedures
- Staff Program Review Questionnaire
Discrimination Free!
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care has launched a public education initiative for early childhood education programs - Building Bridges Building Bridges is an attempt to ensure that early childhood environments are free of discrimination and that they promote respect and value for all family backgrounds. The project will develop practical and concrete training, resources and education materials for the child care environment.
The Coalition is pleased to announce that Building Bridges: A resource and training guide for Early Childhood Educators working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgendered families is now available. Use the above link to download the maunal [pdf, 44pp, 724KB] or contact OCBCC to find out how to get a hard copy.
The Importance of Play
"Britain's safety charity suggested it would be better for the occasional child to fall out of a tree and break their wrist than develop repetitive strain injury from playing computer games."
"When children spend time in the great outdoors, getting muddy, getting wet, getting stung by nettles, they learn important lessons - what hurts, what is slippery, what you can trip over or fall from." (Peter Cornall, head of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents in the UK)
"It is very hard to make sense of geometry if you haven't thrown a ball around or make sense of volume if you haven't messed about with water and sand or do arithmetic if you haven't collected things and arranged them." David Willets, Shadow Education Secretary in the UK
It is now well known that play forms the basis of intellectual, social, physical and emotional skills necessary for success in school and in life. And yet, children today are starved of the opportunity to spend long, carefree hours playing indoors - and especially outdoors. Instead, young children are increasingly watching TV and video games, playing with their latest gadgets or being pushed to participate in structured "educational" programs that supposedly prepare them for school.
Let the Children Play: Nature's Answer to Early Learning by Jane Hewes, PhD, Grant MacEwan College, Edmonton, Canada. This important article articulating the importance of play to enhance every aspect of a child's development and learning can be found on the Canadian Council on Learning website at http://www.ccsc-cssge.ca/english/pdf/snapshot_e.pdf
The importance of these findings has been reinforced by a recent study. Researchers from the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation recently reported on the results of the IEA Pre-primary Project to identify how characteristics of early childhood settings, such as teaching practices and structural features are related to children's language and cognitive development at age 7. Four findings emerged as reported in ExchangeEveryDay (www.childcareexchange.com ):
Children's language performance at age 7 improves as:
- The predominant types of children's activities that teachers propose are free-choice rather than person/social. From greatest to least contribution, activity types were as follows: free-choice activities (teachers let children choose); physical/expressive activities (gross- and fine-motor physical activity, dramatic play, arts, crafts, and music); and personal/social activities (personal care, group social activities, and discipline).
- Teacher's number of years of full-time schooling increases.
Children's cognitive performance at age 7 improves as:
- Children spend less time in whole group activities (the teacher proposes the same activity for all the children in the class - songs, games, listening to a story, working on a craft, or a pre-academic;
- The number and variety of equipment and materials available to children in preschool settings increases.
To learn more about this study, go to http://www.highscope.org/Research/intenrational/iea.preprimary.htm
Family support and Parenting Programs
Your local school board or library has probably been involved in creating these programs in the past. If you now wish to integrate these into your ELCC program, it is probably useful to contact your local school board or library. As an example, the Toronto District School Board has a complete Early Years Policy (http://www.tdsb.on.ca/_site/ViewItem.asp?siteid=271&menuid=2740&pageid=2217 ) including policies and guidelines for Family Support and Literacy Centres (play-based): http://www.tdsb.on.ca/_site/ViewItem.asp?siteid=271&menuid=2782&pageid=2252
The Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network in partnership with the Canadian Child Care Federation has produced a resource kit Language and Literacy: From Birth...For Life. This resource kit is based on the latest research about how young children develop the ability to use language and to read and write. It emphasizes that recent research stresses the need for a broader definition of literacy - the ability to listen and speak as well as to read and write - and a much broader view of when children develop essential literacy skills. The latest research reveals that learning to listen, speak, read and write, to become a literate human being is a gradual process that begins at birth and continues through life. This kit can be ordered from www.cllrnet.ca or www.cccf-fcsge.ca
http://hed.nelson.com/products/productpage.aspx?isbn=0176416692
Multicultural/Anti-Bias Materials and Resources
Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre has an array of useful resources that can be ordered from: http://www.wstcoast.org/pdf/WC-Marketplace.pdf :
- A Guide to Multicultural/Anti-Bias Materials and Resources (2002) A guide to finding materials that help make every child feel welcome. PR-D-302: $4.00 Aboriginal Information Package for Child Care Programs (v2, 2001) Includes information sheets, handouts, resource lists, bibliographies, a glossary of related terms and curriculum ideas with patterns. PR-D-301: $8.00
- Autumn Seasonal Celebrations (1996) Celebrates Autumn Equinox, Canadian Thanksgiving, Fall Fairs, First Nations-Native Harvest, Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, Chusognal, Tet Trung Thu, Sukkot PR-D-308: $10.00
- Building Positive Partnerships (2005) Steps to help all families feel welcome and to build positive partnerships in the care of young children in early childhood settings. PR-D-310: $3.00
- Festivals of Light Resource Package (v2, 2002) Eight fall and winter celebrations from a variety of cultures and religions with light as a central theme. Includes Diwali, Sikh Festivals of Light, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, St. Lucia, Las Posadas, Christmas, Kwanzaa. PR-D-300: $13.00
- Multicultural Materials Checklist (v2, 2005) Designed to assist child care providers in facilitating children's cultural education by including multicultural play materials into the program. PR-D-313: $3.00
- Positive Self-Esteem and Healthy Cultural Identity (2005) Discusses what parents and providers can do to help support the development of a healthy cultural identity which contributes to positive self-esteem. PR-D-311: $3.00
- Spring Seasonal Celebrations (1996) Celebrates Spring Equinox, Arbour Day, Tu Bishvat, Sugaring-off Festivals, Now Ruz. Passover, Easter, Holi, May Day, Wesak, First Salmon Ceremony. PR-D-309: $10.00
- Supporting Children Learning English as an Additional Language (v2, 2005) Discusses how children learn language, preserving the home langauge and supporting English language learning in early childhood settings. PR-D-312: $3.00
- We're More Alike Than Different (2001) Feltboard Stories for Anti-Bias Curriculum in Early Childhood Programs. Includes scripts and patterns for 16 feltboard stories, and useful ideas to adapt your own favourite felt board stories to include diversity. PR-D-307: $8.00
- Welcome to Child Care! (2000) Introduction to routines and activities in typical Canadian child care programs. Designed so you can replace the photos with pictures from your own centre. Captions in English, Chinese, Farsi, French, Korean, Polish, Punjabi, Serbo-Croatian, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese. PR-D-304: $5.00
Policies for Inclusion
See: http://www.specialinkcanada.org/assistance/readings.html for a full reading list on inclusion activities.
Administrative Policies and Procedures
- Business Registration: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/business/topics/bn/needone/menu-e.htmlProvincial
- Tax (GST) # : http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/business/topics/gst/menu-e.html
- Employer #
- Workers' Compensation
- Set up Administrative record-keeping
- Enrolment procedures/child files
- Confirm suppliers: bookkeeping; food; program supplies; janitorial; maintenance, etc.
- Operating Manual (catch-all for everything - program statement, working with parents, acknowledging and recognizing specific needs of diverse communities, etc);
- Produce Forms
Parent and Community Relations
- Plan parent meetings
- Parent registration - organize a date;
- Produce Parent Handbook - describing essentials of the program, program philosophy, key policies and description of staff; For an example, see the description of programs at the University of Toronto, Family Care Office
- Community outreach: social service agencies; public health; community colleges; local schools; community centres; libraries; children's mental health units; public health units.
- Press release
- Plan open house
- Acknowledge funders
Evaluation
Develop your evaluation plans early. This should include program evaluation, staff performance appraisals; parent satisfaction surveys; external evaluation, Early Childhood Evaluation Rating Scale (ECERS), etc.
Establish quality review period and method of assessment, e.g. ECERS-R. Also put in place plan for ongoing quality assessment and improvement.
In some provinces, quality improvement plans may be conditional for receiving provincial grants, e.g. Alberta.