Wilston Kids Care Announcement
It’s been a busy time at Wilston Kids Care over the last few months. The Management Team have been hard at work behind the scenes, working simultaneously on the implementation of several projects that we believe will support our busy families and improve the customer experience at our Outside School Hours Care Service.
So far in 2018 Wilston Kids Care have delivered the following initiatives:
QikKids Kiosks - Installation and implementation of a Digital Sign in System;
QikKids Enrol - Installation and implementation of a fully Automotive Booking Management System;
New Reception Area - Built a new designated Reception Area that is supported by administration staff from open until close, five days a week to assist and support parent enquires;
Parent Lounge Area - Making available to families two Sign in Kiosks, computer (for parent use) to access the My Family Lounge Website (if needed) and a comfortable Parent Resource and Information Area where parents can relax and chat with staff or other families attending the service.
All the above projects were identified and strategically planned for as part of a “bigger picture” approach to prepare our service to be able to support the operational capability to deliver “exceeding” education and care to more than 200 children each session. This infrastructure upgrade supports our ability to increase to our Service Approval (licence) to appropriately govern our service and look after extra children as part of our After-School Care Program.
We are proud to communicate, we have achieved all projects and would like to announce we have finalised our Site Use Agreement with the school and have actively worked in partnership with the Principal Jude Fountain, to identify additional space that could be used to apply for an extension to our Service Approval (licence). The area of demand where we currently have children waitlisted for is After School Care Program. We currently have a licence in the afternoon for 200 children and have identified additional space within the school where we can comfortably house more children which will support working families in our school community. We believe this is a victory for our working families and we are very excited to be able to identify and apply for an additional 60 spaces in our After-School Care Program. The Management Team, has worked extremely hard to put this application together. We have met with the department multiple times, worked in partnership with the school as well as strategically building a better infrastructure to support our operational capability to safely and suitably educate and care for up to 260 children in the afternoon period. This would make us one of Queensland’s largest Outside School Hours Programs delivering education and care to more than 600 families across the week.
We will also be applying for an increase to the morning session Service Approval in case of an influx of numbers due to the additional children we can cater for in the afternoon period. Due to some space restrictions as music lessons are conducted in G Block most mornings, we can only cater for additional 29 places, taking our morning licence to 229 children. The morning session currently has no issues with waitlisted children as we are not at capacity as we average around 120-140 bookings each morning. However, we will slightly increase to plan ahead for the future numbers (if needed) as more and more families also need morning care as well.
Our Vacation Care Program will increase by 60 children just like our After-School Care Program, taking the Vacation Care licence to 260 children per day. We hope to market new initiatives with regards to our Vacation Care Program and we believe this Program will become very popular over the next few years and increase in demand not only with our school community children but to the outside wider community children as well.
We are so very excited to have worked with Jude and the school to identify these additional spaces. The application will be finalised and submitted to the department this week. Our next step will be to have a site assessment and review undertaken by the Department to observe practice and review our operational plan to ensure we can successfully increase from 200 to 260 to be able to fully support the higher number of children in our care.
We will work with the Department and provide them with all the information and paperwork they need to make a decision and issue us approval in writing. This application from the time it is received by the Department, can take up to 60 business days to be reviewed and approved. We are now working closely with the Department and have raised to them we would like to have this reviewed and approved for the beginning of Term 2 which is around this projected timeframe. It is hoped that this approval will be granted within the next 60 days. However, we need to be patient, leave it in their capable hands to review to make a decision on our application. This decision then goes higher up the Department of Education and Training chain, to be mediated and substantiated for final approval by the Regional Office Manager. Whilst we have raised a projected timeframe we would like to implement, it is up to them what date this is approved. As advocates for children, they will take the necessary timeframe to make sure they are looking at the safely, health and wellbeing of all children in our care.
The Department are looking at exceeding outcomes for young children. They are looking to see if we can fully support the number of the children we have applied for, looking wait times for sign in procedures, food and menu delivery, space and facilities are compliant with National Law and Regulations, and the Education and Care delivery is in line with the National Quality Framework outcomes for Outside School Hours Care.
We will keep you posted with an outcome to this matter as soon as we hear. Our communication strategy will be equitable and delivered to all families in a succinct and prompt manner. If approved and our new Service Approval is issued, our next step is to then send official offers out to the next 60 families on the waitlist. We ask that families are prompt with their acceptance as the system can only allow 72 Hours (3 days) for an offer to be accepted before it expires from when the offer is sent. If not accepted, the system will move to next person on the waitlist and remove your child’s name completely. As the system is now digital it takes care of this process for us and will be prompt in formalising and processing offers and acceptances to get people enrolled and booked in.
Please note; none of this is approved until we receive official approval from the Department of Education and Training. If we receive approval I will communicate this to the school community and confirm our next steps.
Hopefully we can help a lot of families with this initiative. Again, we are so very happy to deliver this outcome to our Wilson Kids Care and school community families. We would like to thank all the people along the way that supported this project during this long and arduous process to finally get to this position. Now we are here, we are very excited to get the opportunity to help as many families as we can.
Kind regards,
Raeleen Wren Tamara Wilson
Centre Director Service Manager
Wilston Kids Care Wilston Kids Care