Almost 5 million kids are in organized childcare in the United States. When you account for siblings, parents, caretakers, legal guardians, and childcare professionals, a lot of people are involved!
However, this can get overwhelming quickly. In a child care business, smooth parental involvement is crucial. Most parents don't want to have their kids in child care. They'd prefer to have them at home.
But in order to make money, build a career, and focus on other priorities, child care is necessary. It's also a great opportunity to educate and socialize young children.
However, that doesn't mean most parents don't worry about their children when they're gone. To help alleviate these concerns, it's important to implement a childcare management system.
If you've struggled to implement one, you know the struggles. If you want to learn more about how parents can help a child care management system or are going through trial and error, we can help. Let's get started!
Why a Child Care Management System Matters
Parent involvement is a crucial part of child care. If an incident occurs, or something changes, you need to be able to get in touch with them.
However, some methods of communication are better than others. For instance, if you email a parent, will they read it? If it's not an emergency, should you still call their office number?
That's why we've developed a digital system that stores child profiles. For each child, you'll be able to pull up the following information:
- Phone numbers
- Emails
- Push notification options
The goal is to sync all communication through the child care management system app. That way, you don't have to risk missed voicemails or buried emails.
When communication is easy, parent involvement is smooth. They feel like they've been kept in the loop, and that nothing happens with their child without them knowing about it.
This helps build a strong reputation between a child care business and the parents involved. This will ensure re-enrollment and strengthen a reputation.
Prioritizing Communication
With our child care management system, one of the top highlights is instant messaging. That way, parents and staff can communicate with each other in real-time. There's no delay, or confusion about when contact was made.
This is especially valuable for time-sensitive questions or emergencies. That makes it a valuable tool to improve your current system of managing a childcare business.
Our management system can also produce daily news. Think of scrolling through the day's top headlines on your phones. Within this system, it's the same concept—except the headlines are all relevant to your child.
As a child care business, you're often dealing with frazzled or overworked parents. Everyone is busy, and trying to keep track of all scheduled events or holiday closings can be challenging for parents.
Embracing Parental Involvement
With the right management system, you can eliminate this issue. All relevant information will be housed in this newsfeed, which puts it in a single-pane-of-glass view.
Here are some options for headlines that could feature in a parent's newsfeed:
- Observations
- Assessments
- Scheduled events
- Holiday feedback notes
- Inspirations
- Closing days
- And more
All of this information will help parents feel more informed and involved. This newsfeed is also interactive, which lets parents input important information:
- Their child's attendance
- Allergies and medications
- Modify meal plans
- Input events
- Input weekly schedules
A profile for any given child serves as the main source of truth for all crucial information. Whether you need to check on an allergy or communicate about a meltdown, it's all housed in the app.
Incident Reporting
No one likes incident reports. As a child care business, it's always stressful to report an incident that occurred on your watch, even if it was no one's fault.
As a parent, hearing that something happened to their child when they weren't there is stressful. During these high-stress times, smooth incident reporting is crucial.
Thorough, transparent incident reporting will help soothe parental concerns. If they know that you're on top of everything that happens, positive reviews and re-enrollment are more likely.
With incident reporting, you need instant communication in some cases. When you are able to enable push notifications or instant messaging capabilities, it's just like messaging a parent directly.
The best part? You don't have to worry that your email got buried, or that your voicemail was never received.
If you find yourself Googling 'parents help child care management system', this is the best perk of implementing the right system. You'll be able to promote yourself as a safe, responsive child care business that truly cares.
Parental Permissions
No one knows a child better than their parent. Each parent knows their child's tastes, allergies, requirements, schedule, and how to best handle them.
As a child care business, being able to mimic this parental level of expertise is a tough task. However, it's one that child care staff are well equipped for.
However, following parental wishes is crucial. There's no faster way to endanger a child, or incur parental wrath, than to ignore parental permissions.
Some parents don't want their child exposed to water, for instance. If a child commonly has ear infections, a child may not have permission to run through the sprinklers or go swimming in the kiddy pool during summer.
Other issues have even higher stakes. Does a child require a snack to go with their mid-morning medication? What about a coordinated naptime so a child isn't cranky when their parent picks them up?
Parental permissions are a crucial part of a management system. This will help keep you organized and ready to pivot at a moment's notice.
Parents Can Help a Child Care Management System
Now you know that parents can help a child care management system be effective and sufficient. The right management system can help ensure top-notch service, parental involvement, and all-around satisfaction.
If this sounds like what you're looking for, schedule a demo with us today! We're happy to help.
Are you looking for more child care management information? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Child Care Management.
Our child care management system makes running your child care program simple and efficient. Get back to what's most important. You shouldn't have to spend more time on the administrative tasks than you do with children and staff.
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Or schedule a demo with us to learn more about how our child care management system, Alliance Core, can streamline your administrative processes.
Do you run an early childhood association made up of child care providers? If so, check out our Ultimate Guide to Shared Service Alliance.
Header image courtesy of Jumpstory.
