More About Co-Produced Childcare
Parents have important (and often overlooked) insight into how things are for children and families in their community, aspirations for their children and lots of ideas, skills and connections. Childcare professionals have important knowledge and understanding about the early years. The instigators, be they community members, existing providers or local authorities have energy and resources. Co-production is a way of working that values all of these different skills and insights and brings them together to design and build the best possible childcare setting.
Lucie Stephens, former Head of Co-Production at New Economics Foundation, and an instigator of Friendly Families Nursery, talks more about the theory of co-production, how it works and why it is important for the creation of quality childcare here.
Lucie Stephens, former Head of Co-Production at New Economics Foundation, and an instigator of Friendly Families Nursery, talks more about the theory of co-production, how it works and why it is important for the creation of quality childcare here.
There are three key areas to think about when developing a nursery with your community:
- Building relationships: investing time in getting to know and work with parents, childcare professionals and the wider community (read more here).
- Building you space: understanding the importance of your childcare setting and developing this together to ensure it delivers on parents aspirations and childcare professionals needs (read more here).
- Setting up your service: working with families and early years professionals to develop a high quality approach that meets the needs of local children and families, including learning together about statutory requirements and regulations (read more here).
Many of the resources we share in this toolkit have been developed during the co-production work done at Friendly Families Nursery. This nursery was established between 2019 and 2021 by partners including NEF (the New Economics Foundation), Coram Family and Childcare Trust, Peabody Community Foundation and Collaborative Design and Build and supported by funding from the Mayor of London and Trust for London. You can read the full story of the nursery, based in Deptford, London here.
In this toolkit we have gathered information under each of these key themes, but as you will know, and our diagram illustrate 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.
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