The Components of Quality Child Care

The Components of Quality Child Care
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The Components of Quality Child Care
Each and every day, millions of parents drop their children off childcare centers, family day care homes or preschool. Usually, the cost, location, values, teachers, and programs offered in a particular child care center influence a parent’s choice of a childcare center. However, the universal component in any childcare center that any parent or guardian wishes for is that their child will have a safe and effectual day in a caring environment. Quality childcare, therefore, is an essential component in the proper growth and development of any child. However, the truth is that very few parents can actually afford the proper kind of childcare they would want their child to receive. As a result, there is a great need for policies and guidelines that provide for the minimum requirements necessary to ensure that every child receives quality childcare (Workman & Ulrich 2017). In order to ensure that the childhood programs children are enrolled in provide quality child care, then some basic guidelines and policies should be enforced. Accordingly, the understudy will discuss some of these necessary requirements.
The basic components of quality child care
All child care programs need to follow the necessary and relevant safety and health practices. These include registering and licensing child care centers and family day care homes, enforcing hygiene practices such as proper hand-washing and sanitation in order to prevent or at the very least minimize the spread of infections. There should also be guidelines for administering required medication to the children in the child care centers and the staff should be trained on the same. In addition, there should also be guidelines for safe sleeping for the infants and toddlers in these homes and centers all over the country.
The staff and teachers working in child care centers should be properly trained in early childhood development. The training and educating of staff responsible for child care is a vital tool for estimating the quality of child care and determining the success of these programs in the long run. Staff training equips the child care providers with the skills required to focus on the individual learning abilities of the children and aids them in appropriately planning for the children’s activities, form bonds with them and stimulate them through conversation, interaction and responsiveness to relationships (Workman & Ulrich 2017).
The amount of attention and time every child requires depends on their age and unique characteristics. In general, however, infants will demand more time and one-on-one attention which will decrease as they grow older, become more independent and are capable of actively engaging in activities in small supervised groups. Therefore, the adult to toddler ratio in childhood care provision centers will have to accommodate for such situation if they are to meet the necessary requirements for providing quality child care (McCain, McCuaig, & Fraser, 2011). Various states provide different requirements in order to meet the adult to child ratio. The Education of Young Children and Zero to Three recommend one ...