More and more municipalities are opting for the afternoon care model at schools, which is increasingly replacing the tried and tested after-school facilities. The reasons for this are savings in education, which are once again carried out on the back of the children.
Upper Austria. The afternoon care includes a much poorer quality of care and a lack of legal requirements. It is important to Kinderfreunde Upper Austria that children receive the best education and are not exposed to poor childcare.
Hoard vs. Afternoon care
It has been a long way to go from traditional childcare facilities to educational facilities in the afternoon. In after-school care centers there is a fixed care key, so a maximum of 23 children are cared for by at least two people. In addition, after-school care workers have a comprehensive and legally prescribed elementary education training. Children with increased care needs are provided with their own assistants for integration in a day-care facility in order to pay attention to the special needs of these children, to observe their development closely and therefore to provide the best possible support.
The host institution must present a detailed educational concept in which, in addition to learning support, a focus is on documenting the developmental progress of each individual child. Even with the spatial conditions, there are legal requirements regarding the minimum size and height of the room as well as numerous other details to create the best possible learning and development situation.
“Everything that should now be taken for granted does not apply to the increasingly popular form of” afternoon care “at schools,” warns Petra Sucherbauer, managing director of Familienzentren GmbH of Upper Austria Kinderfreunde and continues: “There are simply cost reasons and savings in education, that promote these negative developments. ”
Lack of awareness
The child friends see the reason for this downward trend less in the communities. “The communities are often not even aware of the great difference in quality between afternoon care and the classic after-school care facility,” says Sucherbauer. “Community representatives often demand the cost of the afternoon care but the quality of the after-school care facility – but that doesn’t go together,” emphasizes Sucherbauer. Child friends see it as their duty to inform even more about these differences in the future.
There is no binding childcare key for afternoon care; there are only guidelines here. Support staff often lack the necessary additional training: the needs of children with special educational needs cannot be addressed as in day-care centers. The educational concept and space requirements are not given in the form of after-school facilities. This knowledge is also often lacking in parents who actually want their children to be well looked after.
Expand all-day schools and pay attention to quality
“Here, children’s educational institutions are actually becoming so-called repositories again, we can no longer accept that. In our afternoon care centers, we pay close attention to the needs of the children and try to cushion the major impact on quality, ”says Roland Schwandner, chairman of Kinderfreunde Upper Austria.
“It is important to us to show that children have earned the best development opportunities. We therefore demand binding legal requirements for afternoon care with regard to the maximum group size, spatial requirements and the care of children who require thorough educational support. We see all-day schools as essential support for the compatibility of family and work, but also for the best possible promotion of the children’s development potential. In any case, attention must be paid to the quality – in the interests of our children, ”says Schwandner.
New training for staff
The Family Centers GmbH of Upper Austria’s Kinderfreunde is the provider of numerous children’s educational facilities, from crèches to after-school facilities, and looks after around 5,000 children across Upper Austria every day. It now also operates 26 afternoon care locations. “We too are confronted with ever greater challenges in order to raise quality in line with our pedagogical standards,” says Sucherbauer.
In order to increase quality, Kinderfreunde OÖ will be offering further qualification for supervisors in afternoon care / all-day schools in their family academy from spring 2021. In the course of this course, the current situations in practice are dealt with, the latest pedagogical standards are taught and the participants are strengthened for daily tasks.
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