Being Quality Assured {wales}

[aly]

Asked my local ncma rep ages ago about the NCMA Quality standards as they are supposed to be renewed every 3 years, my time was up this month and as I changed my insurance to Morton MichelI wanted to know whether or not I still needed to be a member.

ANyway when I contacted My local DO she told me that she was being made redundant and to speak to my local FIS reguarding this....anyway so we find out today that the ncma quality standards are being taken over by caerphilly council and will be the caerphilly quality assurance scheme.

Sounds but she said basically us childminders have never been looked after properly and are being taken over by the caerphilly council. basically this means that we will be invited to take part of courses that were only given to network minders so isntead of the bog standard child protection course we are invited to go ont he advanced courses...if there are any other courses we want to go on then we can request and should there be enough cms they will open up a course for us.

There will be opportunities for childminder coffee mornings to discuss anythign we want / need ie courses help in anyway to discuss as a group of childminders rather being left to our own devices...

They have lots of good funding for this and I for one I'm really happy. I have shown in previous posts about not happy with NCMA and personally thinking ti is a pointless membership and for once I am proved right. The FIS usually do this for nursery and schools so they are also lookign forward to looking after childminders and our needs, something that we were lacking previously. They have given us a ticklist but it is a general childcare one but they are rewording the childminders one but not due out until end of year as they are still rewriting it so at the moment we will be done under the nursery way for now.....as long as we meet certain criterias will then be awarded the title of Quality Assured childminders...basically similar to the network without being shunned into thinking we are crap minders if we are not network minders!!

Obviosuly there is a lot more to it but I couldnt take it all in

Anyway so thats good news this side, any other welsh ones heard of things changing locally?

N.B obviously this is my own experience with NCMA and not a global thinga and don't want to diss the work they do for others.

[manjay]

I am pleased that you are happy with the way things are going for you. I do have to point out a few things though. In the past it would have been your local authority who dicated what the NCMA member of staff did and who they supported! The way it works is that the LA pay NCMA to provide a package to fit THEIR specific requirements. So the LA would have decided how many Network minders they want and who got what training.

None of this is anything to do with what you pay your membership to NCMA for. It is completely seperate. Your membership to NCMA supports the lobbying that NCMA do on behalf of childminders (amongst other things).

So for you it looks good in that your LA have decided to revamp the support that they give to childminders in your area which is always a good thing. However what you recieved in the past was also in the hands of your LA.

Hope you manage to get the support you are looking for now

[aly]

I am pleased that you are happy with the way things are going for you. I do have to point out a few things though. In the past it would have been your local authority who dicated what the NCMA member of staff did and who they supported! The way it works is that the LA pay NCMA to provide a package to fit THEIR specific requirements. So the LA would have decided how many Network minders they want and who got what training.

None of this is anything to do with what you pay your membership to NCMA for. It is completely seperate. Your membership to NCMA supports the lobbying that NCMA do on behalf of childminders (amongst other things).

So for you it looks good in that your LA have decided to revamp the support that they give to childminders in your area which is always a good thing. However what you recieved in the past was also in the hands of your LA.

Hope you manage to get the support you are looking for now

Yes I did go through the training, I got to the end but as soon as i had a complain made agianst me she dropped me like a hot potato....so liek I said The support I didnt get through the NCMA made me think about leaving the ncma membership as I never got the support.

[tialil]

If I think we have the same DO I will miss her - havent had to ask for help for a long while but was always there if needed.

Glad to hear about the training not being exclusive to the network minders - yes I was a network minder BUT when our coordinator changed hands things went down hill in the begining and after we shall say a conflict of interests regarding how I delivered my activites etc ( but I was good enough for her to bring visitors to me) I resigned... was asked to consider not to but by that time had had enough. Still have my letter wishing me all the best off the head of coordinators now
The only thing I missed is the group training. So to have extra training avaiable to all childminders is going to be fantastic

[aly]

If I think we have the same DO I will miss her - havent had to ask for help for a long while but was always there if needed.

Does She begin with N?

Glad to hear about the training not being exclusive to the network minders - yes I was a network minder BUT when our coordinator changed hands things went down hill in the begining and after we shall say a conflict of interests regarding how I delivered my activites etc ( but I was good enough for her to bring visitors to me) I resigned... was asked to consider not to but by that time had had enough. Still have my letter wishing me all the best off the head of coordinators now
The only thing I missed is the group training. So to have extra training avaiable to all childminders is going to be fantastic

Yeah I am looking forward to it.

[aly]

Just noticed you are in caerphilly, so yes think it's the same one...so is 'G' not the netowrk coordinator now then?

[tialil]

Yes N is the one, knew her before she became DO. As for G she wasnt the coordinator when I became part of the network, she came along a bit later.....

Anyway you know who I am, dh used to bring me craft shopping for cricut carts.... ring a bell with you ???

[aly]

ah with your boys.....hiya hows you xx

g was the reason I stopped going through the network .....you still go to the shop?

[tialil]

Yes with the boys lol ,dont go down there as things have changed in the shop so much that I dont like it there ( plus I have enough to last me ages). Dont seem to keep the type of stock that I like .
We are all fine thanks, seems like ages since we saw you. ds1 is now 16 and ds2 14 - time flys

Im working part time at the moment, got a puppy and want to have time to train him without worrying about other peoples children. So soon as we had a gap in children we thought why not, had waitied for several years for him.
Just have my after school children now. It was strange at first but making the most of my time. Aiming to be back (not full time ) around the summer holidays.

I know what you mean about her. She means well but comes across in such a way that I couldnt do it any more - shame really but was not worth it in the end.

Hope all are well xx

[aly]

Lol we went all in with a husky!

she trianed really well at 6 weeks though so that part I didnt need to worry about...all the kids and parents love her.

I couldnt stand her, me and my friend never got on with her...