CHCIC501A: Manage children’s services workplace practice to address regulations and quality assurance

Coordinate the organisation for an external evaluation

Contents

Preparing for external evaluations 3

Creating ‘to-do’ lists 3

Documentation 4

Physical environment 4

Staff 5

Making changes 7

Topic review 8

2 Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCIC501A: Reader LO 9348 © NSW DET 2010

Preparing for external evaluations

Perhaps the scariest part of working through any of these processes is when it comes time for the external evaluations—the CSO or Validator visit. If you have worked your way through the processes in an honest and dedicated manner, assessing current practises and taking steps to rectify any problem areas, the hard part is done. The only thing left to do is your job! Having spent so much time and energy on making sure everything is ‘just right’; this is a time that many childcare professionals anticipate as a time to receive external confirmation that they are in fact providing a high quality service. However the external evaluations can still be stressful!

Creating ‘to-do’ listsEveryone has their own preferred strategy for remembering important ‘things’. My preferred method is the ‘to-do’ list. If you have already established another method and feel more comfortable with it, it is best to stick with it—providing it doesn’t leave anything to chance! I believe that the to-do list should be incredibly detailed so that absolutely nothing can be inadvertently forgotten or misunderstood by someone else performing the task. It also helps you remember where you were up to if you’re interrupted in the middle of a task. The other thing I like about detailed lists is the feeling of achievement when I can tick off so many items so quickly! For example, rather than write ‘clean the bathroom’, my list would probably say

• Clean and dry the basins.• Clean and dry the outside and legs of the basins. • Clean and dry the taps and spouts.• Wipe above the basins.• Clean the toilets—bowl, outside cistern and outside bowl.• Refill soap dispensers.• Refill hand towel dispensers.• Sweep the floor.• Wash the floor.

I imagine some of you are probably thinking ‘how ridiculous’ but in my defence, important little details never get forgotten! Since external visits are important, and as already stated, a time of potential stress, to-do lists should be created well in advance while the brain is still functioning!

Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCIC501A: Reader LO 9348 3© NSW DET 2010

Documentation

The best way to ensure documentation is in readiness for external evaluations is to prepare a checklist of everything that will be needed in advance. I once again stress in advance because if stress levels build up in anticipation of the visit it is quite likely that something will be forgotten. We have already looked at the documents and records required as well as supporting evidence and by now you have hopefully put together that checklist! By working through your checklist you can collect all required documentation and then as much as possible, place it together in an easily accessible place.

If available, a lockable cabinet with a shelf dedicated to temporarily storing these documents is perfect. In this way everything is accessible, together and still respecting the confidentiality of the material by being locked away. Of course confidential staff files and child records such as enrolment forms will already be in a locked filing cabinet and probably already together so there is no benefit in relocating them. For any evidence that it is not practical to place with your huge pile of documents, it can be a good idea to make a list (yes—another list!) to have with the documents telling the Validator or CSO where to locate the evidence. In this way nothing will be forgotten to be ‘ticked off’ by the assessor. Your list could look something like this;

Location of supporting records and evidence:

• Menus—entry foyer on the kitchen door• Programs—in each classroom next to the main viewing window• Evacuation plans and procedures—inside every doorway throughout the

centre• Children’s current ‘sign-in’ book—on the bench next to the fees box in

each room• Displayed photographs of family functions • Teddy bear picnic photos—under main window in 2-yr-old room• ‘Reptile man’ visit photos—under the children’s bathroom viewing

window in the 3–4 yr old room

Physical environmentAfter working through the various processes, the physical environment should now at least be compliant, so what else can you do? Below are some ideas, that

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while they may seem quite obvious, can be forgotten about when there is so much else to do!

• Ensure that everything is sparkling clean, including windows, curtains/blinds and walls. Don’t forget to remove the dust from the ceiling fans and clean out the fridge! Use this as a good excuse for a thorough spring clean.

• Make sure grass areas, hard surfaces, soft fall and gardens are maintained and looking their best.

• Tidy up the storerooms and outside storage so that everything can be located quickly and easily. Unfortunately this seems to be the sort of job that no matter how often you tidy it up, within days it’s in a mess again!

• Look around the room at displays and posters on the walls. Could they use refreshing or changing? Are posters starting to look a little ‘used’? Do you still have photos up of an event that occurred two years ago, or artwork from a child who is now in Year 3 at school?

• Check and refresh your noticeboards—particularly if you have a ‘community’ style noticeboard. We’re usually pretty good at putting things up, but not always so good at taking them down again—much like the garage sale signs you see months after the event!

Generally speaking, this is the time to wander around and look at everything with fresh eyes. It is human nature for most people to not notice things that occur or deteriorate gradually. For example, how many of you walk through the front door of your house every day, but don’t notice the cobwebs and dust on it until you’re expecting visitors that have never been there before? The problem is that some things happen so gradually that we don’t notice, until we look at things from a perspective of ‘first impressions’. Then you might be amazed at what you do notice!

StaffWhile you are busy focusing on the ‘physical’ aspects of preparation, don’t forget to think about your staff. External evaluations can be stressful, and from my own experience I found that this can affect even the toughest staff member. Prior to the very first validation visit at my centre we were all a little stressed—all except for a very outgoing member of staff who seemed to take everything in her stride and outwardly appeared quite confident. On the day of the visit, she was the one who very unexpectedly developed a stress headache that almost incapacitated her. I remember having to make my apologies to the Validator and rush to the closest pharmacy to buy headache tablets! Luckily we had an extra staff member on that day so that I could be readily available for the Validator if required, so my absence wasn’t an issue for ratios, but we couldn’t believe that with all of our

Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCIC501A: Reader LO 9348 5© NSW DET 2010

meticulous planning, we hadn’t thought to anticipate and cater for a stress headache!

Activity 1

Strategies for alleviating staff stress• relaxing music throughout the day—maybe classical, jazz or something a

bit more contemporary and up-beat - whatever is perceived as relaxing to staff while still being appropriate for children

• aromatherapy candles (out of reach of children of course) can be good for relaxation

• fresh flowers around the room can be relaxing, assuming no-one is allergic to them!

• provide a healthy (or semi-healthy indulgent) lunch and snack for staff who would normally eat in, away from the children—something to keep their energy and morale up throughout the day.

The most important thing would be to ensure that the strategies chosen suit the staff.

At the end of the day (or each day) it is highly beneficial to have a ‘debrief’ time for all staff. This would usually be an informal chat where staff are able to ‘compare notes’ and relate some of the day’s experiences to the others. Regardless of the outcome, discussing the day’s events will help everyone to come down off the adrenalin induced high they’ve been on all day!

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Making changes

Unless a ‘change’ has been noted in a continuing improvement plan (and in this case it would generally mean a gradual change to be implemented in a series of steps), it is not a good idea to decide to implement sudden or radically different changes on the day of an external assessment visit.

Children will notice changes, both physical and/or changes to routines, and will usually in their most innocent but loudest voices ask why! For example, I’ve heard stories where in front of a CSO or Validator children have asked things such as “How come we can’t watch Play School today?” or “How come we’re listening to that music today?” Perhaps the funniest, but most embarrassing one I’ve heard was a child asking “Why are all the teachers wearing hats today?” While some ‘changes’ are obviously in an attempt to be compliant on the day (such as the hats), some things should not be occurring anyway. However even legitimate changes in order to make improvements on what was already satisfactory or compliant behaviour should definitely be left for another day to introduce. If you get caught out in a lie, it will definitely prompt an assessor to wonder what other practises have been modified especially for the day.

For further reading on this topic you may like to go to the NCAC website and look at;

Ask a Child Care Adviser; Strategies to assist services preparing for and during Validation Visits; an extract from Putting Children First, Issue 21 March 2007 (pages 8-9)

Ask a Child Care Adviser; Preparing for the Validation Visit; an extract from Putting Children First, Issue 29 March 2009 (pages 6-8)

Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCIC501A: Reader LO 9348 7© NSW DET 2010

Topic review

Go through this summary of key points to check your understanding;

Do you know how to prepare for an external evaluation/assessment in respect of;

Documentation?

Staff?

Physical environment?

Do you have an understanding of the importance of the timing of improvements and changes?

If you cannot answer these questions you can:

• Go over this unit again.• Talk to your teacher about these questions.• Discuss some of these ideas with an experienced child care worker.

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