Welcome to your toolkit.
It is full of practical advice, stories from our own experience, briefing notes, checklists and examples to explore and inspire you so that you can make co-produced childcare work for you and your community.
Childcare is vital social infrastructure but is often overlooked. It enables every child to get a great start in life and can close the gap in children's attainment before they start school. Childcare is also essential in enabling parents to take part in work, training or volunteering. The price of childcare can have a huge impact on households. Co-produced childcare is a way of developing childcare that works for everyone and enables children to thrive.
Everyone has a role to play in getting high quality childcare working in every community. You may be a parent group, or local community organisation that wants more childcare in your local area, or an existing childcare provider who wants to deepen your engagement with families. You could be a social landlord or local authority who wants to ensure your buildings deliver the childcare that local communities need. There are many different starting points but the most important thing is to get started.
Taking the learning from our experiences establishing Friendly Families Nursery together, this toolkit aims to make the process of setting up a new childcare setting less overwhelming. It is designed to show you all the different elements of getting co-produced childcare up and running. We have split the information between three main areas as all three of these elements are essential to co-produced childcare.
It is full of practical advice, stories from our own experience, briefing notes, checklists and examples to explore and inspire you so that you can make co-produced childcare work for you and your community.
Childcare is vital social infrastructure but is often overlooked. It enables every child to get a great start in life and can close the gap in children's attainment before they start school. Childcare is also essential in enabling parents to take part in work, training or volunteering. The price of childcare can have a huge impact on households. Co-produced childcare is a way of developing childcare that works for everyone and enables children to thrive.
Everyone has a role to play in getting high quality childcare working in every community. You may be a parent group, or local community organisation that wants more childcare in your local area, or an existing childcare provider who wants to deepen your engagement with families. You could be a social landlord or local authority who wants to ensure your buildings deliver the childcare that local communities need. There are many different starting points but the most important thing is to get started.
Taking the learning from our experiences establishing Friendly Families Nursery together, this toolkit aims to make the process of setting up a new childcare setting less overwhelming. It is designed to show you all the different elements of getting co-produced childcare up and running. We have split the information between three main areas as all three of these elements are essential to co-produced childcare.
Building your relationships focuses on developing and growing relationships with parents, childcare professionals and the wider community. Building your space looks at how to make the most of your setting and co-design the resources you will use. Setting up your service shares the steps you need to take to develop and deliver your Ofsted registered childcare.
In this toolkit we have gathered information under each of these key themes, but as you will know, and our diagram illustrates, some of these areas overlap. We know every co-produced childcare setting will have it’s own journey through this process, influenced by the initial resources you have, by the needs and opportunities in your community and the childcare that local children and families need.
Read more about our methodology and your starting points here.
In this toolkit we have gathered information under each of these key themes, but as you will know, and our diagram illustrates, some of these areas overlap. We know every co-produced childcare setting will have it’s own journey through this process, influenced by the initial resources you have, by the needs and opportunities in your community and the childcare that local children and families need.
Read more about our methodology and your starting points here.
The sections below include more background and research on what co-producing childcare means and why it matters. We have also shared the full story of setting up the Friendly Families Nursery showing the time it took and the different phases we went through - but remember your journey may look very different to ours. The resources page has links to lots of helpful information and further reading.
Friendly Families Nursery was supported with funding from the Mayor of London and Trust for London.
Friendly Families Nursery was supported with funding from the Mayor of London and Trust for London.