Parents Who Work Shifts

[Stargrower]

Hello everyone

I wondered what others do about parents who work different shift patterns each week. We are a full daycare nursery and a parent wants to book her baby in for really varying shifts. Some weeks are three or four full days and other weeks are a couple of hours here and there. No two weeks are the same. She would need a full time space, but I can't fill the hours she doesn't use as she will need them on other weeks. If it was one week on and one week off, I could probably accommodate her, but I don't really know what to do. Her older son came to us, so we have known the family for a while, but they didn't need different shifts until now. We a full and have saved the full time space for her. What would you do?

Beehive

[Pimms o'clock?]

Hi Beehive

 

I would be interested to hear what others would do about this sort of thing as we have a child fortnightly for 11 days from a Wednesday to the Wednesday fortnight.

 

We are OK to keep the place open at the moment as we are not full but demand for places for under two's is really starting picking up at the moment.

 

Luckily this parent is about to go on maternity leave and will swap to 3 days per week while she is at home, but in just over 3 months time we will be back to the same shift situation but with the baby as well.

 

Can you let me know how you do sort it out in the end? Sorry I can't be of any help to you though, thank you.

Edited February 11, 2010 by BMG

[Stargrower]

Hello BMG

I will keep you posted! What was Pen Green like? I would love to go...

Beehive

[Guest]

We operate the system that beehive is asking about. We are full day care and opearte a nursery mostly for hospital staff. We too block a full time place out for the child, some weeks they may only need 3 afternoons, next week they may requre full time. We ask the parents for their schedule 1 month in advance so that we know when to expect the child in, if they want to change their schedule once we have it then the changes are extras to what they have already booked, we dont do swops!

 

We also maintain that the parent will be charged a minimum of 21 hours per week regardless of whether they use them or not, i.e. if one week the parent only books 1 afternoon, which is 5.5 hours they will be charged 21 hours. Parents know this in advance of enrolling their child with us; it does take some explaining and admininstrating but it can be done and it is definitely one of our USP's.

 

Oh I should say that the hours booked must coincide with the sessions that we offer; and we offer 7 (I think) different sessions!!!

[Pimms o'clock?]

Hello again Beehive

 

The Pan Green visit was great. The only downside was that they only give you the "tour" while the children are at lunch so you don't get the whole picture, how the wonderful resources are used. But they have so much; a soft play room, a wet room completely tiled with showers and a shallow pool, a family drop in room where parents are free to come and go as and when they want and two staff members are there to facilitate activities.

 

I am definately making plans to try to recreate the den the have (this can be seen on their website) and I also want to try to to make a beach area with sand, pebbles and a ship of some sort.

 

But the things they have that I will never be able to recreate, or afford, are the amount of space they have and they also have cleaning "fairies" during the lunch break that tidy and hoover everywhere!!!

 

I would really like to do their MA because of their deep commitment to parental involvement but my local authority are funding it only at our local Univeristy so I have no choice unfortunately.

 

Perhaps you could persued your LA to organise some training with them in the future. I hope you get to go there, I have been waiting for many years now and finally got there in the end.

 

BMG

Edited February 11, 2010 by BMG