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Better Planning: Child Care Tips From The Frontline

Hello. I'm a mum with seven children under ten years of age. As you can imagine, all aspects of child care have become the centre of my life. Finding child-friendly products, appropriate play groups and suitable child care facilities are challenges I face on a daily basis. Of course, I'm much more relaxed now after seven children, and I know exactly what products, play groups, and facilities to look for. I figured that other parents might be able to use some of the hacks I've learnt along the way. I hope you find my entries entertaining and informative. Happy parenting!

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Better Planning: Child Care Tips From The Frontline

Integrating technology into child care centres

by Soledad Gomez

Using technology can help carers to manage the other aspects of their child care job so that they can concentrate on the best part of their job - spending time with the kids. Here are some ways that using technology can help reduce the time spent on administration, increase the safety of the centre and help guide continual improvements. Here are some ideas for child care management and workers to integrate technology into their workplace to their advantage. 

Online safety incident database 

In the normal course of child care operation, both children and carers can have accidents and safety issues. These are traditionally reported on paper but with the growing use of tablets and mobile phones carer can enter these directly onto a database so that trends in the causes and types of safety incidents can be observed and improvement plans targeted to the most accident-prone parts of the centre. This reduces workload for carers and administrators and helps parents to feel reassured the centre is constantly improving safety. 

Online booking system

By including vacancies on an online booking system parents are easily observed when extra places may be available if they are looking for additional care. This reduces the workload for administrators, increases utilisation of the centre and is more convenient for parents who are often busy at work during the day and looking to catch up on their extra tasks at night or between tasks at work.

Communication with parents

It can often be hard to find time to write down all the learning and fun times that happen throughout the day without interrupting the flow of interactions. By taking quick notes and photos throughout the day with mobile devices carers can give parents a more complete and interesting account of what has gone on during the day while still getting to spend as much time as possible with the kids. These types of detailed and pictorial reports can help centres reduce administration when they come to audits, as well as helping to increase parental engagement and satisfaction with the centre.   

Technology can be a great way to improve the operations your child care centre, and saving your time for your child care operators to spend more time interacting with the children in the centre. The growing use of mobile devices and online databases can help child care centres to constantly improve business processes, reduce administration workload and communication with parents. 

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