Policies
Business Hours
Our opening hours are from 7.45am-4.45pm, Monday-Friday. We close for bank holidays and 1 week at Christmas.
Suiting working arrangements
We offer full and part-time hours for children 12 months to 5 years of age including part-time morning and afternoon options. We will do our best to facilitate individual needs.
Communicating with parents
We operate a policy of open communication with parents and we are happy to discuss children’s development with parents. We provide a highly detailed daily report sheet for each child in our care. For younger children this will include details of all nutritional information, nappy changing, sleep time and play activities for the day. We will discuss any proposed changes to your children’s routine such as progression through each room. We appreciate regular feedback from parents.
Safe and Secure
We have included extensive security and safety features in the design of our centres and have rigorous safety procedures in place to ensure children are kept safe while in our care.
- We have a detailed registration form to ensure that strict procedures are in place for other family members and friends that parents may wish to nominate to collect their child.
- We have controlled entry and exit points to ensure that no person can enter or leave our premises without the full consent of management and staff.
- We have designed all our rooms with safety in mind using features such as elevated radiators, door handles, switches and sockets. Each room is also equipped with a First Aid kit.
- We maintain a daily record system covering attendance, meals, sleeping patterns, activities, incidents, accidents, nappy changes, sickness, medicine administrative and many other areas to help parents and the HSE monitor our standards.
- We have a very high standard of hygiene and maintenance to ensure a safe, clean, environment for your child.
Care Plans
Observation and assessment of children’s development is an essential part of our children service. The needs of the children determine the curriculum of the centre. Observation based assessment is a fundamental part of the process of understanding children. Record keeping is an integrated part of our whole approach to working with young children. These observations enable childcare workers to match their provision with the individual and group learning needs of children. Each childcare unit in the centre has an individual care plan for each child in the unit. Activities in the unit are centred on this plan which is evaluated monthly. Parents meetings are held twice yearly so as to inform parents of children’s progress and development.
Nutrition
Little Hands Childcare is aware of the importance of a healthy and nutritious diet for growing children. With this in mind and because children’s eating habits are formed at a very young age, we obtain our dinners prepared and cooked fresh daily by the qualified chef from N.C.E restaurant. Our menu is varied and we only use ingredients of the highest quality. We have designed our menu’s to follow the food pyramid, which is the definitive guide to ensuring each child gets his/her daily nutritional needs. We fully supervise all snacks and mealtimes to provide a safe, positive and cheerful environment where children can enjoy their food in an unhurried fashion. We will adhere to individual food choices and specific food requirements that your child may have and our daily care sheet will provide you with a detailed daily report on meal times and food consumed here at Little Hands Childcare.
Staff and culture
All of our rooms are fully equipped with the latest teaching materials for the appropriate age group. To compliment our extensive education programme we have a reporting system that is second to none providing parents with a highly detailed daily report sheet for each child in our care.
We carry out a rigorous recruitment process before employing only those whose vocation is the care of children. We aim to employ carers who are qualified, experienced and who share our ethos. We look for individuals who have excellent communication skills so that they can build trust and open relationships with children and parents.
We implement strict working policies and procedures and practices at all staff levels and maintain staff ratios in line with those required by regulations. We have a very low staff turnover, which is very important to ensure continuity of care. Garda Vetting was introduced in 2007 and we now vet all current and future employees as part of our recruitment policy.
Thanks to our staff we are a professional childcare provider. Our unique blend of talent, purpose built facility, culture and values are the building blocks to our success.
We acknowledge as childcare professional the enormous duty we have to provide a caring and loving environment for all children. We are committed to building children’s confidence and self-esteem while ensuring their safety at all times. We take this huge responsibility as part of the chosen career that we have dedicated ourselves to and strive to give each child the best start in life that we can.
Address
NCE Little Hands,
Faranferris Education &
Training Campus,
Redemption Road,
Cork
