Blue Mountains Family Day Care€¦ · Working as an educator for Blue Mountains Family Day Care means that you are going to be providing a safe and stimulating environment for children

Blue Mountains

Family Day CareStart a new career today with Family Day Care!

NSW SERVICE OF THE YEAR

2016!

My Home, Your FamilyEducator brochure

Cnr San Jose Avenue and Loftus St LawsonPh: (02) 4780 5280

Email: [email protected]

Office Hours:8.30am-5.00pm Mon-Fri

www.bmfdc.com.aufacebook.com/bluemountainsfamilydaycare

Passionate about working with children?

All you need is a warm and secure family focused environment, a desire to succeed and a child care qualification or motivation to study.

Let us tell you more…..

Family- Care in a family home, caring for children and buildinga relationship with their family, involvement of your family as well asyourself as an educator in children’s care, learning and development.

Day Care - Regulated care and education, based on latestresearch into best practice in early childhood and school aged care.

Early childhood education and care is about relationships!

It’s about building strong relationships between a child and otherchildren, the people that care for them, their family and communityand nowhere does this better than family day care.

When you run a family day care service you will be working as anearly childhood educator, building relationships with children andtheir families, supporting them in their growth and development. It is a very rewarding and fulfilling career choice!

Family Day Care is the career for you!

What does the job entail?A Family Day Care educator provides education and care for up to 4children under 5 years usually in the educator’s own home. You can also provide before and after school care or vacation care for school age chil-dren. You can have a combination of ages of children in your care but no more than 7 children in total at any given time. To be a Family Day Care educator you need to be registered with an approved FDC service. As a Family Day Care educator you must adhere to legislative requirements and standards to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the children in your care. There are requirements under the Education and Care Services National Law (National Law) and the Education and Care Services National Regulations (National Regulations).

Educators are required to act as mandatory reporters. A mandatory reporter is an individual required by law to report to the Department of Family and Community Services when they have reasonable grounds to suspect that a child is at risk of significant harm from abuse or neglect. These laws and regulations are what govern everything you do with thechildren in your care each day. They focus around seven quality areas which you will be trained to understand and work within by the coordination unit.

The seven quality areas are:• Educational program and practice• Children’s health and safety• Physical environment• Staffing arrangements• Relationships with children• Collaborative partnerships with

families and communities• Leadership and service

management

There are also learning frameworks that support and recognise theimportance of children’s learning and these will be what you will use in your service to inspire your practices.

These frameworks are:

• Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Framework for Australia

• My Time My Place: Framework for School Age Care in Australia

The coordination unit team will help you to understand and work within the legislative requirements and laws through support visits, online group discussions and mentoring.

The benefits of Family Day Care

There are so many benefits to working in family day care both for those who already have formal qualifications in early childhood education and for those who aren’t yet qualified.

For those who haven’t yet qualified in early childhood education and care:• An opportunity to enter into the very rewarding and enjoyable

career of early childhood education• An opportunity to work from home whilst establishing a new career• Flexible working hours to suite you and your family• An opportunity to earn an income whilst you study for your new career• Support and mentoring from a highly skilled and qualified coordination unit team in setting up and growing your business

For those already qualified in early childhood education:• Opportunity to work within a service that is rated Exceeding under the National Quality Standard!• Ability to provide the level of care to children and families that you just can’t deliver as well in any other service• Small group sizes of children• Mixed age groups• Flexible working hours to fit around your own family or other interests• Deep and lasting connections with the children and families in your care• Opportunity to create a space that reflects your own philosphy and

your ideal early childhood service. • Build your reputation as an early childhood professional based on

your high standards• Respect from our team for your decision making within your own

service• You will be running your own business• Support and mentoring from a highly qualified, skilled and

experienced coordination unit team• Both short and long term benefits to your own children growing up

in a high quality, home based, childcare environment!

Play and play centered learning

Working as an educator for Blue Mountains Family Day Care means that you are going to be providing a safe and stimulating environment for children to play and learn in. Play is vitally important in early childhood and is the basis for all learning and development. Play helps develop intellectual skills, creativity, physical health, social/emotional skills and general wellbeing.

A solid and secure relationship between a child and their educator is central to learning through play and in family day care we do this so well! As an educator with us you will be supported in developing relationships with the children in your care that will support that play connection. And you will have fun doing it!

There’s no better job!

Your day as an educator

Every educator is different and each service is too but this is a typical rundown of the basic tasks in an educator’s day.

• Secure the spaces in your home not used for family day care

• Do a safety check in the spaces that you have allocated to family day care

• Have timesheets, notes, receipts, invoices etc ready for families on arrival

• Set up some inviting play spaces, indoors and outdoors, for the children coming into care that day. These will be based on the ages, stages and current interests of the children

• Greet families and children as they arrive for the day and have a brief catch up

• Morning play session - Play with children supporting their interests, needs and ideas. Make notes and take photos as you go, about any interesting or exciting things the children do to share with parents or for you to follow up on later

• Morning tea - assist children with washing their hands and serving their morning tea if and when they are hungry

• Assist children with nappy changing and toileting throughout the day as, needed

• More play time. As above…perhaps outdoors??

• Lunch time - again assist children as required

• Quiet time/rest time - It’s often good to incorporate a time like this into your day where everyone takes a breather and younger children can rest if they need to. Pop on some quiet music, dim the lights and set the children up with a comfortable resting spot while you have a cup of tea, go through your photos and write a daily diary to share with the parents

• Afternoon tea

• Afternoon play session - usually time to pop out some new and interesting things, something a bit different from the morning or alternatively continue with something the children really enjoyed and didn’t seem to be finished exploring

• Greet families and handover - usually you would share some interesting things from the day and give a general run down on their child’s eating, resting, toileting, as well as share your observations, photos and daily diary

• Clean and tidy once everyone has left for the day, wash linen or toys that need it

• Complete any paperwork/planning for the following day

• Put your feet up and have some ME time :-)

If you would like to investigate family day care as a career option you cancontact our coordination unit who will guide and mentor you through thefollowing process.

We do not charge you anything to set up your business initially and onlycharge a small Educator levy once you are established and providing care.

You will need to:• Obtain a Working With Children check if you do not already have one

• Any adult members in your home/or regular visitors will also require a Working with Children check

• Have a police check

• Fill in an application complete with referees and participate in an interview to establish your suitability. Obtain a first aid certificate, including asthma and anaphylaxis training

• Have obtained or be actively working towards a qualification in early childhood education (Minimum requirement certificate 3 in Children’s Services)

Your home will need:• An initial property inspection to establish its suitability as a location

for a childcare service

• To be approved by a landlord/owner if it is not your own home as a place of business

• Possibly some minor changes or additions such as fencing, safe glass, fire extinguisher, smoke alarms etc

How to get started

Will I get support?Yes! You will get support at every step of your journey into establishing your business. That is the role of the Blue Mountains Family Day Care coordination unit.

You will be allocated a Childcare Support Officer from Blue Mountains Family Day Care who will advise you, guide you and mentor you through every aspect of starting up and running your business. There is no charge for this set up assessment and support.

The coordination unit will also help to market your business by advertis-ing for families, process and pay you the government childcare subsidies, allocate families to you from our pool of enquiries, and be there to answer any questions that may come up along the way.

BLUE MOUNTAINS FAMILY DAY CARECnr San Jose Avenue and Loftus St Lawson

Ph: (02) 4780 5280 Email: [email protected]

Office Hours:8.30am-5.00pm Mon-Fri

www.bmfdc.com.aufacebook.com/bluemountainsfamilydaycare