Adult to child ratios and new notification during Omicron
Publication date: 11 January 2022 Review date: 18 February 2022
In the light of ongoing staffing difficulties due to the pandemic, the Care Inspectorate has temporarily adjusted their policy position on adult to child ratios and introduced a new notification.
Extract from Document
“We expect services to meet the adult to child ratios. However, we do accept that when sudden staff absences happen, some settings may still be able to deliver a safe and stimulating service for children outwith the expected ratios in the short-term. This would apply only for children aged two years and over and for no more than 72 hours at a time. To operate outwith the usual ratios, the provider must first exhaust all other options for additional staffing and undertake a risk assessment that, while not exhaustive, includes assessing whether:
it is safe and in the best interests of the children to remain in the service, and provides crucial support to parents
the care and support needs of the children can be met
staff have the right skills and knowledge to care for children
leadership is available to provide good oversight and support
the short-term change has been communicated to parents/carers.”
Please read the full document before implementing (3 pages long):
Play Scotland is supporting the consultation on Play Sufficiency Assessments Regulations, which is now open. They are really keen that the children and young people you work with have the opportunity to have their say on the Regulations, as they will be important to the assessment of play opportunities in every local authority in the future. These assessments will not be limited to playgrounds, but to outdoor opportunities for play and hanging out more generally.
Alongside the online consultation, Play Scotland are keen to specifically seek the views of children and young people from across Scotland. They have produced a Facilitator's guide to support engagement that they can send you online as well as a unique link that you can use to record your results.
Play Scotland want to gather feedback from a wide range of children and young people representative of those from different age groups, backgrounds, different parts of the country, as well as engaging with groups working with children and young people with additional support needs, and those who are refugees/asylum seekers, LGBTQ, and young carers.
If you feel it is more appropriate for the children/young people in your group to submit their views independently online, Play Scotland can provide an individual link for them to do this.
If you would like to be involved in gathering your groups views, please reply to info@playscotland.org The consultation closes on the 31st of March and they are keen to have as many responses as possible.
Link to Open Space Strategies and Play Sufficiency Assessments:
https://consult.gov.scot/planning-architecture/os-strategies-ps-assessments/
Please see link below for provider notice for all registered childcare providers:
https://soscn.org/downloads/news/elc-workforce-provider-notice-19-jan-2022.pdf
FCSS are working on Challenge 6: how do we better understand supply and demand of school age childcare: https://www.civtechalliance.org/civtech-6-challenge-6-school-age-childcare
FCSS proposed a solution to gather the data needed by the school age childcare team at Scottish Government to inform future policy. Their solution is based on an extension to our existing Caerus system, using engagement activities and questionnaires to gather qualitative and quantitative data, they will then overlay this with existing research and statistics to create a dynamic data dashboard giving real time information.
This will benefit parents as finding the care and activities they need for their school age children will be easier. Providers will get real time insights to demand for their services, this will show what and where parents are searching for care and activity clubs.
The system will include both providers registered with Care Inspectorate and activity providers such as dance, swimming, football, drama classes etc.
As part of the MVP (minimum viable product) for their solution they are seeking pre-registration and data collection from school age childcare providers and from parents of school age children.
Registered providers link: https://regprovider.caerus.scot/
Parents link: https://parents.caerus.scot/
Activity providers link: https://unregprovider.caerus.scot/