Question: How can we ensure our QIP is a living document, which allows all educators to regularly contribute and stay up to date with our overall goals?
Answer:
Switch up your approach
Focus less on people working directly with the document and more on how they engage with the process.
Having a 50-page document in the staff room that educators can look at on their lunch break probably won’t get their attention or their inspiration flowing. Make the process approachable to staff by using plain language and a user-friendly format that meets their needs.
This can create buy-in and a shared vision for self-assessment, strategies for improvement, and service goals. Having conversations in staff meetings and educational leadership about topics that relate to quality areas, such as ‘How can we support families more in their parenting role?’, will open up the conversation and allow educators to reflect and brainstorm together to map out their ideas for improvement. Designate someone to jot down these ideas and complete the admin duty of adding them into the QIP document template at a later time.
Bryony Catlin
Consultant, Community Child Care Association
Need help transforming your QIP into a manageable plan that will help you put your best foot forward for A&R? Lisa Heard says our guidance on her QIP was one of the key changes that helped bring her service from ‘Working Towards’ to ‘Exceeding’:
"[Community Child Care Association] really turned my thinking around. Our QIP in its new form is a lot simpler to manage and maintain, as well as documenting to stakeholders our current and ongoing quality improvements."
