The First Month - learning routines, building relationships

The first month is the most important and potentially challenging month - for your child, for you as a parent, and The Centre staff.

For your child, it is a strange place.  The people are new and often a child will miss his or her parents a great deal in the beginning.  He/she may cry when you drop him/her off in the morning.

For a parent, it is unsettling to leave your child in a strange place.  You can take comfort from the fact that staff are carefully selected for and trained in caring for children.  You will have already seen that The Centre is a happy, caring and active place; and you can rest assured that if there is any need at all, our staff will call you.  Your child, above all, is safe with us

For the staff it is a process of learning slowly and carefully about each individual child – a process we take very seriously indeed; a process for which our staff have been well prepared.  You can help us complete that process successfully by giving us the information we need to begin understanding and forming a relationship with your child.  You will know other things that will help us ease your child into our community, taking the fear and loneliness out of this important first month.

B oth the parent and the staff will have extra information each day such as: how the child played with others or what he or she learned; about whether or not the child wanted to come in the morning; about how soon after the parent left the child stopped crying; about any signs of illness; about how the child is eating or sleeping.  All this information should be shared by the people who are acting as partners in providing care for the children, i.e. parents, staff and The Centre supervisor.

The first month is very important as we lay the foundations for a happy and rewarding experience for your child.  It is when we begin to build trust and an open partnership among child(ren), caregivers and parents, so we can meet the goals we share – excellent care and real opportunities to learn, grow and develop.

• Child care application form
• Child medical form
• General consent form
• Individual action plan for anaphylaxis
• Infant feeding form
• Infant toddler information form
• Permission for photographs form
• Permission for transport by motor vehicle form