Day care providers should grab every available opportunity to involve parents and welcome their input. When parents participate in a child care service it makes for a very rewarding and positive experience for all concerned including the children. You can share insights that you have gleaned from observing the child at day care and in return parents can provide a wealth of valuable information giving you a holistic picture of the child.

This mutual cooperation allows both parties the opportunity to share effective methods and ideas regarding working with individual children. The day care experience for all concerned is enriched by this listening, respecting and valuing of each other's knowledge. The parents can learn so much about the socialization and interaction of their child from the carer whilst passing on their family values and beliefs to the day care. Opportunites for communication should be provided both formally and informally and information sharing should be ongoing.

In order to maximise the effectiveness of this sharing process assess your staff and their abilities in the area of working and communicating with parents. Perhaps they need training and guidelines in order that they communicate effectively and professionally. How can staff be supported so that they don't feel constantly harangued and scrutinised? Consider your current timetable and staffing levels - do these currently allow for time to be spent with parents and any subsequent follow ups? Try to think of innovative ways for parents to become more involved e.g. they could be a guest speaker and talk to the children about a topic of expertise, they could offer to volunteer at the day care occasionally. You should have a complaints procedure in place that allows parents to air their grievances easily and without feeling judged. You should view complaints as constructive criticism and a means to improving your service and should be perceived as open, friendly and professional when it comes to comments. Thank parents for bringing issues to your attention and deal with the problem immediately. Management should deal with more serious issues but your complaints procedure should also allow for staff to be empowered to deal with certain problems. Perhaps have a suggestion box where parents are welcome to offer suggestions/criticism anonymously.

Your orientation and settling in procedure should facilitate parental involvement from the outset. You can encourage positive interaction by forming a parents committee so that they have allies and a collective voice. Parents need a daily point of contact regarding their child so integrate a key worker system into your day care. Use your notice board or a newsletter to provide information about weekly scheduling and activities. In order to avoid any misunderstanding or confusion you should share daily information both verbally and in writing. It is a great idea to have a website and a blog where parents can leave comments and you can update everyone regarding day care activities. You can include a staff page on here with photos and information.

Heretofore untapped resources can be accessed via parental involvement in your day care. Parents will be encouraged to give back if they feel valued and supported. Many conflicts and misunderstandings are borne out of lack of information so opening up channels of communication can avoid these. A friendly, welcoming and open day care should be your ultimate goal. Happy parents mean happy kids mean happy you!