CARES Evaluation

It has been a chaotic month.  The new kids have settled in, the school schedules have been worked out, and things are beginning to smooth out once again.

I realized earlier this year that it was high time I updated my website.  There have been a flood of inquiries lately, and some of them have asked about my website.  I haven't updated it since 2006, so that is on my more pressing to do list.

Today I had an evaluation of my program done by the county's research and referral organization.  They do much more than referral service, and one branch of their office is dedicated to being a resource to child care professionals.  One of the many programs they offer is a stipend program to encourage child care providers to increase their education.  As I have been attending child-related classes since soon after I started this business, I have participated in their program every year for the last four years or so.

Three years ago they made it a requirement that anyone participating must have a site evaluation.  There is a set of standards that, I believe, was published by the Department of Education, that the evaluator uses to judge my program.  Each topic has a scale of 1-5, and covers many areas of the program from hygiene to exercise to education.

The evaluation is approximately four hours long and consisted of the evaluator watching the interaction with the children, observing the daily routine, inspecting all of the materials available to the children, and finally interviewing me to answer all the questions that were not obvious from her observation.

This is my third evaluation.  Every year I learn something new that I'm not doing well, and work to find a way to rectify it.  Some of their criteria is absurd and impractical, and I have to accept that I will not meet their requirements and move on.  Some have been areas I know I lack, but can't seem to find the money or the means to improve.  Some have been very good ideas, and areas in which I had no idea I could improve.  All in all I am usually grateful for the advice.

This year I was quite nervous about the whole thing.  I have done so much to improve my facility over the last few years, and it has kind of become routine.  I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but I will know soon just how closely my opinion matches those of the regulators!