Since February childcare businesses have had to make wide ranging changes to how they operate due to COVID. Because our Childcare Booking System manages many businesses processes it was critical that we focused on adapting our childcare booking for COVID to enable our clients.
Track and Trace
It was already the case the childcare businesses had to keep attendance registers as an OFSTED requirement and this meant that our childcare provider clients were already well suited to be able to provide trackable details when required.
Flexible approaches to distancing
One thing that was clear was that as guidance was and still is changing it meant the each provider look at social distancing solutions that would suit their businesses with safety being their priority. We saw two common approaches that were used and we quickly ensured our childcare booking software was able to fulfil this change in operation.
- Grouping attendees by existing social bubbles such as school bubbles or family bubbles. This involved adding additional fields that parents could fill in with any school or family bubbles the attendees belonged to. The childcare providers could then focus on grouping attendees who share a bubble to minimise the risk.
- Enforcing a group blocking so the same attendees have to group together for a block of time. Its common in childcare for parents to require a last minute booking, or to only book for specific days, to match their shift pattern for example. This ad-hoc booking however does increase the risk of more complex bubbles. We enabled functionality so that childcare providers could enforce parents to book in one or two week blocks to ensure that those attendees stay within that bubble.
Flexibility continues to be key
We are proud of how our childcare bookings system was able to adapt to these sudden and dramatic changes. we are always aiming to ensure, unlike an off the shelf solution, that we work closely with our clients to adapt as and when needed to ensure their childcare business can focus on the childcare and not the admin.
If you want to find out more about what we offer you can find out more here: Childcare Booking Software.