Ministry Visit for Unlicensed daycare (no report)

[cfred]

You're absolutely right. Risk management is a huge issue. We spent a great deal of time during 2 of the 4 meetings I attended discussing risk management. In fact, that was pretty much the ONLY think Marnie Flaherty continued on about. It's very frustrating! I can say that the vision for daycare, so far as the Ministry and advocates are concerned, is pretty cookie cutter....and it's all super, super risk free to the point that it's sucking the quality out of any programming. This whole emergent curriculum is wonderful, but just so long as the kids are nicely bubble wrapped. How much valuable learning are children missing out on at the expense of risk management? I visited some schools in New Zealand. What a difference! A very non-litigious environment breeds a lot more freedom in the classroom, preschool and otherwise.

Another thing that frustrated me to no end.....We have fewer serious occurrences, period. It was pointed out to me that they ONLY reason the licenced sector had so many serious occurrences in the AG report was because ICPs don't have to report anything. However, it would be interesting to find out how many of us have 'lost' children. I never have, nor has any ICP I've ever known. And their infant death rate was certainly huge compared to ours. And the AG stated that the incidents cited in the report were actually serious, not run of the mill nuisances. So I'm not sure why risk management is so much more a concern for home daycares, with the lowest group size in the industry, opposed to large centres. It's an odd way of thinking, to me. If anything, I would think, with oversight, we'd be the safest option out there.