UK-Based Busy Bees Illustrates The Similarities and Differences To US-Based Early Childhood Education And Care Programs

A few weeks ago I had a great opportunity to visit one of our sister companies in the United Kingdom, Busy Bees, who operates over 100 nurseries in England, Scotland, and Wales. Busy Bees founded the company in 1984 because they felt that they couldn’t find quality care for their own children; the company has grown to be the largest provider in the UK. The company operates both community and workplace nurseries, including two that I visited, one for the University of Safford and one of three that they operate for the Land Registry, the government agency that registers land titles and transactions in the UK.  It is always fascinating to visit child care centers in other parts of the world and to compare our approach to early childhood education with theirs.

After spending time in these programs, I would certainly say that there are far more similarities than differences, and any parent who has been to a child care center in the US would find these centers very familiar. Interestingly, their curriculum is built around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), which is a national program for children from birth through five years of age, required at all nurseries, both private and government run, as well as smaller, organized programs. The program specifies that children must learn through play and have an individualized program to meet their unique needs. Parental involvement is also required under EYFS. The program is comprehensive, specifying learning objectives for children at 6 different ages from birth to five years of age, in six areas of learning including language and literacy, physical development, creative development, social/emotional development, problem solving and numeracy, and understanding of the world/general knowledge.

These early learning standards are aligned with national standards for students in primary and secondary school, so that there is an entire educational continuum in the UK that recognizes the importance of early childhood education as the foundation for long-term student success. In this way, I would say that the UK is years ahead of our country in recognizing these critical years and providing a framework to support quality each child’s early experiences. Frankly, our country has much to learn from the UK in their national focus on and recognition of early childhood education.

In addition to having a comprehensive program at their nurseries, there were many wonderful special features at the programs I observed. One great feature of the Busy Bees programs is the wonderful outdoor gardens they have introduced into their nurseries—some big, some small, where the children grow their own vegetables, ultimately to be used in cooking and eaten at the center. What a great way to teach children about nutrition and what a fun experience to grow their own food.

So, as I so often do after visiting children’s programs outside of the United States, I returned home with a renewed sense of the world community that is dedicated to enhancing the lives of children. There is such an amazing common commitment and passion among early childhood professionals that knows no borders of state or country. We have much to learn from each other to make a better world for all our children.

Changing Workforce Demands Benefits for Working Parents

Periodically, I welcome a guest to join me on my blog. Fran Durekas, Chief Development Officer of Children’s Creative Learning Centers (CCLC) has authored the following article in this week’s edition of BusinessWeek. If your employer is considering sponsored care, pass this article on to the appropriate contact in your Human Resources group. It will help them have a better understanding of the working parent and the benefits of employer-sponsored care they can include in their own proposal.

As the demographics of the workforce changes, the needs of the workforce are also changing. The Society for Human Resource Management Workplace Forecast of 2004-2005 found that an increase in workers with elder care responsibilities and an increase in workers with both childcare and elder care responsibilities were the primary upcoming demographic trends in the workforce.

As I talk to my clients, this is indicative of a prominent dilemma these days – specifically the changing landscape of work-life balance for parents. Especially with the new economic environment, employees want to be visible, engaged and demonstrating value. So, employees worry, “How can I continue to show up to work every day, without worrying about my child care and/or elder care responsibilities?”

As a working mom growing my own business, I know first-hand how hard it can be to balance my work and my life at home. Employers today need to look at policies and benefits that will support the “sandwich generation” and allow them to maintain their skilled workers and their productivity.

Are You Willing to Make the Change?

Offering a spectrum of dependent care benefits that support the work/life balance of employees can produce a win-win solution resulting in loyal, satisfied employees that improve an organization’s overall productivity and reputation in the market. By supporting retention of employees, and solutions that tend to lower family-related absenteeism and subsequently increase productivity, these programs also generate a substantial return on investment.

One of my clients puts it this way:
“We know employees have lives outside of work,” says Pamela Faccone, manager, Health and Wellness at Prudential Financial. “And we’re committed to helping them succeed both professionally and personally. Our employees have access to an excellent network of in-home, on-site and near-site child care providers, adult care services, flexible work arrangements, wellness programs and a variety of other work/life programs all designed to create a highly supportive and productive workplace.”

Other employers are starting to respond to this change as well by adjusting their benefits offerings to meet current employee needs. According to the Families & Work Institute’s 2008 National Study of Employers, 79% of employers now offer employees some level of flexibility. Child care assistance benefits have remained stable over the years even through the down economy and assistance accessing information on elder care services is offered by more employers today (29%) than in previous years.

The Future of the Benefits Package

In the current economy, it is as important as ever to find and retain the best employees and to ensure that dollars spent on employee benefits are spent wisely. According to the 7th annual MetLife Annual Employee Trends Study, 54% of employers cited retention of employees as one of their top three benefits objectives for 2009 and close to a third of employers feel that offering work/life benefits is a key strategy to accomplish this goal. However, I find it concerning to see that the study reveals only 8% of employers feel the need to offer benefits that meet employees’ diverse needs, while 46% of employees would like to see this kind of customization of benefits.

As an employer, if you really want to ensure your dollars are spent effectively, you need to align your organization’s benefits offering with the specific needs of your workforce and offer your employees benefits packages that address their diverse needs.

Organizations that are willing to design this type of benefits package that will cover a range of employees’ diverse needs and simultaneously respond to the changing demographics of the workforce, such as dependent care access or financial assistance programs that cover both child care and elder care are the ones that will ride out the wave as the economy ebbs and flows. They will see direct benefits through lowering turnover and absenteeism, increasing productivity and enhancing the corporate image as an employer of choice. In addition, offering employees benefits that meet their current needs will result in a more engaged, more loyal workforce and assist employers in the consistent, primary goal of employee retention.

Steps You Can Take to Create Customized Benefits Offerings

1. My recommended first step to evaluate the potential impact of any employee benefits option is to survey your employees.
2. Once the basic needs have been identified, organizations can gather information on ways to meet identified needs and research existing resources and programs in the market or industry.
3. Organizations will likely want to look into ways that other organizations meet similar needs in their employee populations, and analyze potential return on investment statistics where available.

For example, an organization is interested in examining the potential to provide dependent care assistance, but doesn’t know where to begin. Through a dependent care needs assessment survey, you can identify challenges and needs. Do your employees need help finding convenient, quality child care or elder care centers in the community? Is there a greater need for emergency care? Do workers need help in paying for quality care for their dependents? Are there resources in the market currently that can be leveraged to support these types of demands?

Once needs have been identified, you can evaluate options such as offering access to traditional dependent care facilities, such as on-site or near-site care or non-traditional options that are becoming more in demand as backup care, access programs, financial assistance programs or resource and referral programs.

A look at best practices offered both in the market and by other organizations to meet similar needs can help the organization narrow down their options, identify key issues to consider in the evaluation process and decide whether to design a new program or develop partnerships with existing providers.

Working with a benefits consultant or other third party resource can help you evaluate and research options appropriate for your organization and ensure that you are effectively aligning your organization with current best practices and providing employees with benefits that are both meaningful and relevant in today’s workforce.

About Fran Durekas, Founder and Chief Development Officer, CCLC
Fran Durekas is Founder and Chief Development Officer for CCLC, a leading provider of employer-sponsored early childhood education and care. In this capacity, she provides executive leadership and support for new center openings, long-term strategy development for centers and client relations. She also assists with CCLC center design, construction and program recommendations. You can find out more about Fran and the high-quality employer-sponsored care that CCLC offers at www.cclc.com

Take Action: Support Early Childhood Education For Our Most At-Risk Children

This week, a very important Early Learning Challenge Grant Fund comes before the U.S. House of Representatives. The Early Learning Challenge Fund is a competitive grant program created to assist states in increasing the quality of early learning opportunities for disadvantaged children from birth to age five.

The Early Learning Challenge Fund will provide $1 billion in grants to state programs each year, for eight years. It is included as part of a larger education bill, H.R. 3221 authored by House Education Committee Chairman George Miller of California and supported by President Obama, who has made investing in early childhood education a priority in his administration.

This is extremely important funding as it will increase the quality of early care and education provided to our most at-risk children, while keeping program development at the state and local level. If passed, it will benefit children in communities throughout the United States.

How can you help? As a parent, I encourage you to send letters to your Representatives asking them to vote in favor of this Early Learning Challenge Grant Fund. Use the letter template below and email today. You can find their names and contact information at: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ Your support today will make the difference to thousands of children in the coming years in preparing them for a lifetime of learning.

Click here to email to your local representative directly.

Dear (Insert name of your Representative):

On behalf of the children in your district, I encourage you to vote in favor of H.R. 3221 when it comes before the House of Representatives. As you are aware, Title IV of H.R. 3221, creates an Early Learning Challenge Fund to provide grants to the states to increase the quality of Early Childhood Education (ECE).

Economists from Nobel Laureate James Heckman to Art Rolnick, Chief Economist of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, have demonstrated that there is no higher return on investment in education than the return gained by investing in high quality Early Childhood Education.  The Early Learning Challenge Fund included in H.R. 3221 will give the states the ability to create high quality ECE programs for children from birth to age five, and will focus federal funds on the children who benefit the most from high quality ECE – children from disadvantaged families.  By investing in early childhood today, we make children better prepared for kindergarten and elementary school, reduce long-term dropout rates, teen pregnancy, and crime, and increase long-term earnings and GNP.

The Early Learning Challenge Fund will allow early childhood education and care providers to significantly increase the number of young children who receive a high quality early childhood education, while keeping program development at the state and local level.  By leveraging resources from federal, state, and local governments, as well as the private sector, it also ensures maximum return for our investment.

Please support the thousands of children in your congressional district who will benefit from a high quality early childhood education by voting for H.R. 3221 and the Early Learning Challenge Fund.

Sincerely,

_________

Controversy Rages Over President Obama’s Back to School Broadcast

As if going back to school time isn’t hectic enough and there aren’t enough political controversies swirling over health care, the environment, and the economy in general, President Obama’s Back to School broadcast, on Tuesday, September 8 has now generated an avalanche of controversy. A communication sent by Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, to school principals during the last week of August and posted on the U.S. Department of Education website, sparked the controversy when it announced the speech along with a menu of classroom activities for before, during, and after the speech. The President’s message was streamed live at 12 noon EDT and could also be viewed on C-SPAN or via the internet. In addition, a transcript of the speech was made available on September 7th, the day before the broadcast to give parents and school officials time to review it before it was aired. However, despite that, many school districts indicated that they would not show the speech and in other districts parents are being given the right to have their children “opt out” of the speech and engage in other activities during that time.

Why the controversy? According to the White House, the purpose of the broadcast is to emphasize the importance of children taking responsibility for their own education and encourage them to set goals to succeed. He hopes to use this opportunity to promote personal responsibility, goals, and persistence in school achievement, and motivate school children around the country as they are returning to school. President Obama stated in his speech, “I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.”

However, according to critics, such as Neal McCluskey, Associate Director of the Center for Education Freedom at the Cato Institute, the broadcast is troubling in that it imposes values on the students and is intended to glorify the presidency and President Obama himself. And in a September 1 statement, Florida Republican Party Jim Greer expressed outrage that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s “socialist agenda.” The debate raised so much concern that it did result in some revisions to the activities to reinforce the focus on personal responsibility rather than support of the president’s position.

Whatever your political leaning, concern, or support of the speech, there are some fundamental facts about the importance of education that cannot be overlooked. School children in the United States continue to lack proficiency in critical reading and mathematics skills, and we are at the bottom half of industrialized countries in the proficiency of 15 year olds in mathematics and science. Our high school and college graduation rates are also disappointingly low, as the requirements for skilled workers continues to rise. The need to improve our educational standards and our educational system could not be more profound. The well being of our country and all of our citizens depends on having more, better educated individuals entering the workforce, while as a nation we move in the opposite direction. Whether you believe that the debate about President Obama’s Back-to-School speech is a contrived distraction from the important issues in education or a justified response to an effort to promote political propaganda, now is the time to reaffirm your commitment to your children’s education. Education is the gift of the future, and I encourage you to reinforce this simple message to your child through your words and actions. On this issue, there is no more important spokesperson for your child than you.