As part of our ongoing effort to help families find the right environment for their child care choice, Child Care Resource Center has updated its Keys to Quality Child Care Checklist to help families ask their potential child care providers questions about COVID-19 safety.
The Keys to Quality Checklist presents families with a series of questions put together by CCRC’s child development specialists. Families are encouraged to use the list as a guide when asking their potential child care provider critical information regarding health and safety protocols, program size, and provider certification and licensing, among other details.
Much of California’s work force is returning to work in some capacity, whether that’s from home or in the physical work space, and that means a greater need for child care.
In light of the ongoing pandemic, CCRC has added 11 new sets of questions to the Keys to Quality Checklist related to COVID-19. The checklist is free to families and available for download on our website.
The new questions included in the checklist cover concerns over social distancing and use of masks at the facility. There are also questions about how child care providers follows sanitization guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and how regularly health and wellness checks are conducted among children and staff. By using the checklist, families can also learn more about the notification process if a child or staff member tests positive for COVID-19.
In addition to questions about COVID-19 safety, the checklist can also help families learn more about the cost and availability of child care with a certain provider, the types of interactions between the care provider and the children, style of learning and play, and communication expectations.
Additionally, parents with school age children can also benefit from the checklist, which includes questions about the style of learning. For example: Will you assist my child with virtual learning? Will they have support for homework assistance and adapting to technology? How will technology equipment be stored?
While CCRC works with child care professionals to improve the quality of care, we do not inspect or warrant the condition of a child care facility or the quality of supervision the children receive. Parents are encouraged to learn about what to look for when choosing a child care, and available resources such as: Community Care Licensing, Oliver’s Law, Trustline, Megan’s Law and more.
