When you are looking for a long day care centre, be sure to go for one that is fully accredited. This means that they have met with all the appropriate health, safety, staffing and educational standards and, if they run to school age, will offer a school readiness program in your child's final year with them. There are loads of different long day care centres out there and it can be tough to categorise them. I've decided to split them into 2 main groups; major chain and independent. My children have attended both styles of childcare and this is how I rate them.
Major Chain
When I felt he'd outgrown family day care, I enrolled my son in a long day care centre. For the first couple of months that he was there, the centre was independently owned and managed. However, before long a major child care group bought out the proprietors in the form of the now beleaguered ABC Earning Centres. Given this history, I feel I'm in a fairly good position to comment on the differences between a privately operated long day centre and one owned by a large childcare provider.
Advantages
• The big childcare chains have economies of scale on their side. They can afford equipment, renovations etc that smaller organizations can spend years trying to raise fund for.
• Due to their size and number of staff, some offer in house training and development for their staff, which can have great benefits for the children.
• Again, due to their size, they tend to offer clear career structure and paths for their employees, which should encourage dedicated staff to join them and stay.
• Some of the big childcare chains have been around for years and have grown so large precisely because they have a sound early childhood education and care philosophy.
Disadvantages
• There is a danger when big established companies come in and buy out all the smaller competition that they are stifling possible innovation and 'the personal touch'. Generic is not always best, especially when it comes to looking after and educating children.
• Whilst many of the big childcare groups are well resourced and have state of the art centres etc, some of them have been accused of having a strangle hold over their staff. If all the long day care centres in your area are owned by the same parent company, childcare workers in that location have little choice but to work for that business, whether they really want to or not. Friends in the childcare industry have told me that a flashy centre with lots of toys and craft equipment impresses parents, but it does not necessarily mean that the staff are well paid, valued and happy. And surely contented staff make for contented kids?
• Long day care can be quite an expensive childcare option. Also, it's surprising how much the prices can vary from centre to centre and area to area. This is because there are no guidelines on what a long day care centre should charge.
• Given that the centres set their own fees and in some places the only childcare available is from a major group, that group has a monopoly and can, theoretically, ask whatever fees it thinks are reasonable.
Personal Experience
My son settled into the bigger, noisier environment of a fully-blown long day care centre really quickly. He loved having all the extra child around and felt comfortable with his peers in an age specific classroom. It was noticeable that once the centre was bought out by ABC Learning, the first thing that happened was that the outdoor play area was revamped and lots of new toys, books and art materials arrived. After a couple of months though, it also became clear that a number of the staff who had been there for years were either leaving or looking for new positions. I'm sure that this is not the case every time an independent long day care centre is taken over by a larger competitor, but this is what occurred in my experience.
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