Childcare Standards (Essay Sample)

Childcare Standards
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Childcare Standards
The department of health has various standards that need to be met in childcare. It has clearly emphasised the meaning of childcare giving. It states that child care is care of a child not close to their home (DOH, 2000). Toddlers, nursery school and nurses are defined. In order to get licenced as a care giver one needs to have met the standards that the definitions apply. There are other requirements that need to be met in order to get licenced as a care giver.
It is mandatory to carry out certain inspections before a licence can be given to a day care facility. The inspections include those of fire safety, health and sanitation levels of the day care centre. The inspections are carried out by a local child facility inspector. Apart from inspections there are also some requests called variance requests that the care centres should comply with (DOH, 2000). The requests range from the behaviour of the care givers down to the environment and exposure of the children during their time at the facility. They touch on alcohol, dress code and any kind of association that a child may have while at the day care centre. Association ranges from the people touching the child to even the people the child sees. The directors are always urged to comply with all the requests.
The health care standards of the facilities as mentioned above are required to be top of the chart standards. The standards touch on the health care requirements of the workers at the centre, the health requirements of the children themselves and the protocols to be followed in various health related cases. The protocols, for example, touch on what needs to be done in case a child needs immediate medical attention. The guidelines here range from how to treat the child to how fast to contact the parent. There are also guidelines on administering medicine to the children. The health standards need to be so high that the day care facility needs to have prier medical records of the child in order to curb any emergency incidents that may occur in the future (DOH, 2000). Immunisation records are most important in cases involving communicable diseases.
The care givers also have their responsibilities clearly stated for them to make sure that the children from toddlers to pre-school get the best care possible. Caregiver responsibilities include: child admittance to the health care to the time of departure, which means making certain that the child is given to its parents only (DOH, 2000). The responsibilities also touch on the proximity to the children at all times to the ranging from bathroom care to nap times and discipline methods by the caregivers.
Fire precautio...