Safety in the Daycare
Practical safety tips for daycare providers
Visit Daycare Safety, the first part in a series on practical safety tips for day care providers.
Safety in the daycare is an issue which is continually on most conscientious daycare provider's minds, but with recent events, it is an even more pressing issue. Many small home-based centers and small private and public centers worry that they have no way to compete with the new technology employed by larger centers and schools. While this is true to a certain extent, there are many things that these centers can do to emulate the strategies of their larger counterparts. Discussion of this is uncomfortable for many daycare providers because they do not want to confront the issue that there are those out there that would like to harm these precious children, but with forethought teachers can have confidence that should something arise, they will be able to better serve their children.
A few basics are:
Have a well thought out emergency plan in place. Most centers have plans in case of fire, tornado and similar event, but very few home centers have planned for other sorts of tragedies. Carl Roberts IV chose the school that he did because he counted on their lack of suspicion and security, and thought that he would have hours before the incident was reported to authorities. Whatever course of action decided upon at your school it is imperative that teachers, students and parents are aware of this plan and will know how to act.
Communicate this plan to authorities. Many schools have police on the grounds during all school hours or making routine trips around the campus, but smaller centers cannot justify this expense in light of many of the daily financial burdens they face. Daycare directors can meet with their nearest police, sherrif, etc. and inform them of their plan of action and recieve practical advice and ways to improve this plan.
Practice safety proceedures routinely. Many schools are now instituting regular emergency drills much in the same way that daycares practice fire and tornado drills. This will give teachers an opportunity to bodily go through their assigned actions to insure the safety of the little ones and allow children to familiarize themselves with these actions. It is vitally important however, to not create an atmosphere of fear and an assumption that something will happen to them, because the likelihood is most schools will never experience this sort of tragedy, but students can experience the loss of trust and innocence even without this.
Coming October 21- Small Daycare Safety, with more suggestions to keep your daycare children safe- on an even more practical level: from arranging a meeting place in case of emergency, to alerting the authorites in the even of an incident.
Visit my blog for another perspective on this issue.
Copyright © 2006, Carrie Henderson and Suite 101. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized use will constitute an infringement of copyright.
