Guest Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 hi all, first post but been reading through and may i say it has been a real help. myself and my wife are opening a nursery in scotland very soon and are working on the policies and procedures but we are a bit lost on a few of them. not having a background in childcare myself i'm a bit more lost than my wife. i have been asked to provide an open access policy,acceptance of gifts,restraint of service users and a procedure for manual handling of loads and people. these are the last ones i'm having trouble with it has been a long hard process trying to put these multitude of policies in place but the care commission require them. i'm hoping maybe someone can give me some insight in to these. many thanks and again what a great site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 Hi ggtruedee and welcome to the forum and to childcare. You must have policies and procedures coming out of your ears at the moment!! It can be difficult to get your head around them all. I own a pre-school and we have an open door policy but I am not sure that is the same as an open access policy-would that be linked to equal opportunities and special needs? Ours isn't actually a separate policy but part of our ethos and in our information booklets. We don't make appointments for parents to visit when they want to initially look around-we ask them to drop in whenever it is convenient for them but asking them to avoid the very beginning and end of the session as they are usually too busy to spare a member of staff to talk with them. And current parents can come into pre-school whenever they want to discuss their child. But, as I said, I am not sure if this is what you are looking for? We don't have one for gifts-I assume that is gifts to staff at Christmas and when children leave? Not sure what that would involve-other than do you accept gifts, what happens to them, are they shared with all the staff or can individuals keep them? We receive gifts for the pre-school, such as books, individual members of staff receive them from their keyworker children and then we get them for the staff as a whole. This has happened since I took over 18 years ago and I have never thought about having a policy for it. If you go to either of the next two sites you will find lots of information about manual handling-here and here. I am not sure about the restraint of service users one, sorry can't help you there. I hope some of this is useful and I am sure there will be a lot more members along soon to give you mor information. Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 Just wanted to welcome you and say 'you have come to the right place' - there is so much information on here, and reassurance - you can access professional advice and rant and rave with empathatic practitioners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 You will also find policies and procedures here and here. You may find some useful information looking through them. Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mundia Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 Just wanted to add my welcome too. Good luck with your venture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 hi all,first post but been reading through and may i say it has been a real help. myself and my wife are opening a nursery in scotland very soon and are working on the policies and procedures but we are a bit lost on a few of them. not having a background in childcare myself i'm a bit more lost than my wife. i have been asked to provide an open access policy,acceptance of gifts,restraint of service users and a procedure for manual handling of loads and people. these are the last ones i'm having trouble with it has been a long hard process trying to put these multitude of policies in place but the care commission require them. i'm hoping maybe someone can give me some insight in to these. many thanks and again what a great site. Hi welcome to the best site around. Good luck with the nursery. We visit Scotland every year, best place for a holiday(any jobs going????Oh if only) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dublinbay Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 A very warm welcome from me too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Wolfie Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 And a warm welcome from me too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rea Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 Hi ggtruedee, welcome to the forum. I cant help with the policies and proceedures you need, Scotland are different to England in some aspects, but Beau works in Scotland and will no doubt be able to help when she see's this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 many thanks for your good wishes and warm welcome i only wish the care commission were that welcoming lol. its been a hard slog me and the wife doing all the building work and alterations to the place just wish people wouldn't assume we have a cash cow. its amazing what they want you to do when its not their money thats being spent. but i'm confident we will have one of the best nurseries in the area with what we have put in place. hope so anyway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyMaz Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 many thanks for your good wishes and warm welcome i only wish the care commission were that welcoming lol. its been a hard slog me and the wife doing all the building work and alterations to the place just wish people wouldn't assume we have a cash cow. its amazing what they want you to do when its not their money thats being spent. but i'm confident we will have one of the best nurseries in the area with what we have put in place. hope so anyway Welcome to the forum ggtruedee - I hope your new venture goes well for you. I'm sure that all your hard work (and being a member of the forum!) will help you make your setting the best it can be! Maz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beau Posted November 12, 2007 Share Posted November 12, 2007 Hi and welcome to the forum. The best of luck with your new venture too! I don't have a separate restraint policy but have a paragraph in our Behaviour Management Policy which I will copy and paste here for you. Occasionally we may need to restrain a child if he or she is presenting a danger to him or herself, to others or to property, or is disrupting a playgroup activity and will not respond to verbal requests to stop. Excessive force will never be used and a child will not be held in a way that is restrictive to circulation or breathing, or is likely to damage the child. The restraint will last only for the time it is necessary. All serious incidents involving restraint will be carefully recorded and the parents or carers informed when they collect their child. I am going on some Manual Handling training this week and next week, so if I get anything useful from that I will post and let you know! As for the others, we don't have them either so obviously not a big thing for the Care Commission where I am, although each time they inspect they dream up some more policies that we need! I'm not really sure what the Open Access Policy is for - did they give you a clue? Remember that a policy basically just states what you would do in a given situation and why - there are no hard and fast rules for these as every setting is different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 12, 2007 Share Posted November 12, 2007 For Manual Handling perhaps the HSE website might have something. I have just made a health & safety file up for my pre-school and they seem to have something for everything! Good Luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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