Safety and wellbeing

For more than 40 years, we’ve been providing nurturing and caring environment for our children. Along with an excellent education, nothing is more important in our eyes than their safety. Here’s what we do to keep your child safe:

Safe centres

Our centres provide safe spaces for babies, toddlers and young children. They provide just the right balance between offering physical challenges while keeping your child out of harm’s way. The safety basics we adhere to are:

• Safety gates is most centres
• Smoke detectors and fire detectors checked regularly.
• Heaters safely covered to prevent accidental burns.
• Assessments everyday to ensure we are providing safe outdoor equipment.
• Safe fall zones and soft landing areas where most tumbles occur.
• Sun-safe awnings and shade sails to provide UV protection.
• Easy access to hygiene policies, processes and procedures
• Dedicated areas where children and teachers can easily wash hands, blow noses etc.

Safe homes

Our Home Based Educators’ homes are all checked to make sure they’re child-safe and secure. Monthly visits from our Visiting Teachers ensure the safety of their homes are maintained.

Staff checks

All our staff – teachers, Home Based Educators and any others who encounter children – have full police and background checks. We ensure we meet the children’s workers requirements of the Vulnerable Children Act 2004.

Training

Our teachers and educators are first aid trained.

Children work hard to build their immune system, and we work even hard to help your child stay healthy by:

• Providing clear guidelines to parents about when it’s best not to bring a child to care – including any diagnosed illnesses, fever, diarrhoea or vomiting.
• Monitoring each child’s health throughout the day – increasing our vigilance in flu season and during any identified illness occurrence at the care location.
• Notifying parents when a child does not feel well to prevent an illness from spreading.
• Communicating with parents when an identified outbreak occurs so they can be watchful for any symptoms in their own child.
• Educating parents to help them know when it’s ok to bring their child back to care after an illness.

At Barnardos Early Learning, wellbeing means feeding our minds and bodies in a positive way. Your child’s wellbeing is as important to us as their safety and physical health.

Cultural and spiritual wellbeing

We are committed to Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the founding document of Aotearoa and the bi-cultural community we live in. We aspire to build a sense of belonging, trust and respect with whanau through warm, inclusive relationships. We acknowledge and respect the cultures of our communities and create authentic ways to celebrate, share and learn from one another.

Emotional wellbeing

We incorporate quiet times into our day to encourage your child’s ability to quiet their minds and recharge. Learning to balance their activities is an important skill. We provide spaces to rest and sleep, so your child can have a balance of play and relaxation throughout the day.

Nutritional wellbeing

Growing children need good food! Where meals are provided, we ensure they’re planned carefully and adhere to the Food Act. We use seasonal and local ingredients in all our meals to provide the energy children need to develop. Healthy eating habits are encouraged with colourful presentation and the chance to develop polite and sociable skills during meal times. We also educate parents about nourishing lunchbox choices for those care locations where parents provide meals. We’re very happy to accommodate any dietary needs or allergies.

Our nutrition policy within centres includes:

• Offering healthy food choices 
• Menus are planned and aligned with the Ministry of Health and Heart Foundation guidelines
• Water is provided with all meals and milk is also offered at snack times 
• Menus are rotated and displayed for parents and whanau to see
• Baking and cooking are an important part of the centre programs – care is taken to ensure ingredients are suitable for all children