How firm and consistent are new national standards for releasing children from daily care, asks Mary Evans?
Childcare providers gearing up for the start of the Ofsted inspection regime next month will need to check that their policies and procedures measure up to the new national standards - not least in how they handle 'home time'.
The final version of national standard 12, 'Working in partnership with parents and carers', expects providers to establish policies to ensure the release of children only to individuals named by the parent. But no mention was made of this in the initial draft.
Although responsible daycare settings will have developed tried and tested methods for sending children home, the recently published Ofsted guidance (see box) suggests that settings require written permission from families as to who can collect a child.
An Ofsted spokesman insists the guidance is not an entirely new departure. 'Under the old system, some local authorities would have had these requirements. What is new is that we are now setting this out nationally.'
Nathan Archer, communications officer for the National Day Nurseries Association, says, 'I cannot find any reference in the Children Act to the need for prior written consent from parents to allowing their child to be collected by another adult. However, this issue is in the NDNA standards which inform our Quality Counts accreditation scheme. After all, it is basic good practice to have a mechanism in place for this.'
Mr Archer is concerned that the new national standards, which set out to eliminate the anomalies of the past caused by local interpretation of the Children Act, seem to allow the individual Ofsted inspectors great leeway in how they apply them. For example, the guidance does not always categorically state that the childcare provider shall do this or that and instead says, 'you may wish', 'in addition consider' and 'it is advisable to'.
'There is the potential danger that we could get back to the old Children Act regime where the interpretation of the rules depends upon whoever is the individual inspector,' he says.
According to John Woodward, director of the Busy Bees nursery chain, which runs nurseries, creches, after-school and holiday clubs across the country, the key is to plan to 'expect the unexpected. We have had cases where perhaps an estranged parent tries to collect a child and, of course, the child recognises the parent and it would be easy to let the child go with him or her, but we have to get it right.
'We have upset some grandparents over the years by refusing to let them pick up their grandchildren. We had a case where the grandparents had come down from Scotland to London and as a surprise wanted to collect the grandchild and take her to meet her mother from work. We had to refuse. We didn't know who they were, we had no permission for them, and because they wanted it to be a surprise they didn't want us to phone the parent and check.'
The chain's daycare settings particularly require written permission when the child's parents are engaged in court battles. But different types of setting need different ways of coping. In a supermarket creche where there is no established relationship between the staff and families, the Busy Bees policy is to take a photograph of the person dropping the child off. If another person is collecting them, the staff ask beforehand for some piece of information that is private but would be known to that person.
Jane McKeown, manager of the Kids & Co nursery in Darlington, says, 'When parents fill in the application form for a place we ask them to provide details of who will routinely collect the child. We need to meet these people and have them attend the introductory sessions with the child so we can get to know them, as we will be giving them feedback each day.'
However, any policy can come unstuck in the event of a crisis. Ms McKeown says, 'We had an emergency flooding alert before Christmas and had to send the children home. In one or two cases neither the parents nor their emergency contacts could collect the children. We had to ring and ask the parents to arrange other people to collect them. We had to be given the names and details and the people had to be told to bring a piece of ID so we could check them.'
John Woodward says when there is a sudden change in routine plans, the Busy Bees staff ring back and check information to ensure it is authentic. 'You can get a call from a father saying, "I am stuck on the motorway and there is an accident and I'm getting so and so to collect my child instead".' In such circumstances, the procedure is for the staff to ask for the father's mobile phone number, check it against nursery records, ring back and confirm the arrangement. If that were not possible, they would contact the other parent to check and confirm the change of plan.
Whatever policies are in place, most nurseries say, the crucial thing is good communication between parents and providers.
Safe release
A supporting criterion under National Standard 12: Working in partnership with parents and carers states that children should only be released into the care of people named by the parent. The guidance for full daycare settings states that 'when releasing children to individuals other than the parent, you need to consider:
- making sure that parents are aware of your procedures;
- obtaining prior written consent from parents as to who can collect their child;
- informing parents that a child will only be released into the care of a person authorised by them;
- emergency plans such as passwords, when known people cannot collect a child;
- clarifying who is the legal guardian where appropriate;
- ensuring records are updated regularly.
Other forms of provision must undertake the same or similar considerations.