Policies Separate From Procedures

[Guest]

Re: the article about this in last week's Nursery World, I wondered whether anyone has theirs separate from each other. I've been trying to reorganise ours, but for some policies I'm finding it quite tricky. The policies themselves don't seem to say very much!I just wondered if anyone who does theirs this way was prepared to post an example or two.

[Guest]

Hi,

 

I have my policies and procedures in the same booklet. Never thought about having them separate, just another booklet or folder.

Didn't read nusery world so if you could enlighten me.

 

Net xx

 

[hali]

mine are in the same booklet too

[Guest]

They're together in my setting too

[Guest]

and in mine too

[Guest]

mine too

[Rea]

Some of our proceedures were seperate. Child protection proceedure was stuck on the cupboard door where it was easily accessible, the medical emergency proceedure was in the front of the child records folder, evacuation of the building was in the front of the register as was the risk assesment for outings which at playgroup consisted of checking the area at the back of the church hall before we went out.

[Guest]

Sorry, my copy of NW was at work so couldn't reply last night.

Policies & Procedures, by Laura Henry. pp. 20-21

'Policies reflect the rules governing the implementation of the setting's processes. Most policies are developed to reflect local, national & international governement requirements. For instance, they need to cover health & safety at work & equla opportunities.

Procedures, however, represent an implementation of the policy. In other words, procedures are the actions that staff should take. For example, the actions to be taken in the case of an accident or a child protection incident. Therefore, in terms of good practice, policies and procedures should be separate documents.' [My italics]

 

It's probably just me being a bit over zealous. How do you read it?

[Rea]

Not over zealous I wouldnt think. There's no point having a proceedure if no-one knows where it is, thats why ours were in the place most likely for it to be needed. Fire evacuation proceedures are always displayed in buildings so that users know what to do, same with our proceedures I would say.

[Guest]

I think what I was trying to say, clumsily as usual, was that ours, like many others I've seen, had the policies & procedures kind of lumped together so that you couldn't always work out the one from the other. When I try to separate them out, it doesn't always work because there's a lot more procedure than policy! Does that make sense?

[Rea]

Some of our policies wouldnt come apart either I seem to remember. CP, medical emergency, evacuation of building, hygiene, were easy to make a few bullet points. The CP one came from Ofsted? I've seen the same one in various settings. The others were plain english detailing what to do. I suppose for a procedure it's best to keep it simple, any further detail can be accessed via the policy. Just take the most relevent points to keep everyone safe, take a look around and write simply what you would do in this or that situation. The procedures are probably unique to your setting, our medical emergency required someone to call an ambulance/carer, someone to keep child/adult calm, someone to remove/supervise other children and someone to go outside to meet the ambulance. All the other points in the medical policy would follow when the immediate crisis had been dealt with.

With the fire evacuation policy things may change from October with every setting required to have fire marshall training. We used to state in ours that staff knew how to use fire extinguishers (we would have had to have read the instructions first though) I spoke to a fire officer about training on their use who said he didnt want me tackling a blaze, that was his job, he wanted me to get out. I have recently heard however that if extinguishers are on the premises you must know how to use them. I also know of somewhere within the NHS where the extinguishers have been removed so that staff dont have to use them!

[Guest]

Thanks for that comprehensive reply, Rea. Very informative.

 

That's another point, about Fire Marshall training. Our Training Directory for 2006-7 doesn't offer that at all, so I have no idea what's required. Most of us have had training in using fire extinguishers from the company that services them - they've supplied certificates and all, very good!

[Rea]

The nursery I'm in are having training tomorrow, I'll find out who from and post back.