We are pleased to invite you to a special Enhance Family Day Care Educator Zoom Meeting next Tuesday 28 March at 7pm, hosted by Meegan Walsh and our Support Team.
Our agenda for Tuesday night is as follows:
New Enhance branding reveal Educator Policy and Training Handbook rollout
We are pleased to invite you to the first Enhance Family Day Care Regional Zoom Meeting of the year on Wednesday 8 February at 7pm, hosted by your Children Services Team.
Our virtual meetings play an integral role in keeping you up to date with the Enhance service happenings, current Quality Focus areas and Sector wide updates.
We are pleased to share the meeting agenda for next Wednesday night, as follows:
2023 Key Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Dates- Kooricurriculum
Safe Play Spaces Policy & Guidelines
Safe Play Spaces Policy & Guidelines
Provide your feedback by Monday 30 January
Keeping your child/ren's safety at the heart of all we do, we are pleased to announce the review of our Safe Play Spaces Policy and Guidelines. Our goal is to ensure our policies and guidelines align with sector specific best practice, changes in legislation and recommendations from leading national authorities. The Policy and Guidelines focus on the physical Family Day Care environment and ensures practices relating to children’s health and safety are at the forefront of our services.
We seek your input on the current Safe Play Spaces Policy and Guidelines. For your reference, please find the links to the current policies below:
Thank you for your valuable input and ongoing support.
Kind regards
Meegan Walsh Children Services General Manager
Welcome to 2023!
Thank you for taking the time to implement the end of year deadlines to ensure the smooth processing of all new enrolments, ceasing care forms, holiday forms and timesheets, over our busy holiday season. Well done!
As we commence the new year, our Administration Team would like to brief you on the following reminders and housekeeping. We trust the following information will answer your questions and assist in establishing sound administration practices for the year ahead.
Administration Reminders
School Age Notification Please complete the School Age Notification Form for all children who are attending care with you and have transitioned to school age care or vacation care arrangements. This information will be updated in the child's file and will also support your ratio of children in care. If the child is finishing or has finished care with you, please complete the Ceasing Care Form.
Reminder: Children who are enrolled to start Prep in 2023 are classified as school age, as of 1 January 2023.
Ceasing Care If you have not already done so, please review your children in care page on Harmony. If you have children who have not returned to care for 2023, please complete the Ceasing Care Form.
Children only hold active CCS enrolments for 14 weeks from their last day of care. After this time Centrelink will automatically end their enrolment with the service. Our Administration Officers will remove the child from Harmony if they reach 14 weeks from their last day of care. If the family would like to recommence care, they will be required to complete an updated Enrolment Confirmation. If this occurs, please speak to your Administration Officer.
When a child is finishing care or has finished care with your family day care, please ensure a Ceasing Care Form is completed with the family when the parent/guardian gives notice. This must be submitted to the service immediately. This ensures that bookings are ended in Harmony and CCS enrolment ends correctly and on time for CCS compliance.
Updated Bookings When you complete an updated booking change in Harmony and submit it for processing, your Administration Officer will send out a new Enrolment Confirmation for parents to approve. These are required to be confirmed by the parent/guardian before the change in care commences. Please remind parents to keep an eye out for the Enrolment Confirmation sent through Harmony (Redbourne). You are required to complete updated booking changes in advance, before the new start date. When you and the family agree to a new care arrangement, please complete a Change Booking Request. Completing this after the care has started causes compliance issues with CCS and duplicated e-signatures in the system.
Invoicing and receipting payment | Gap fees Under Family Assistance Law, it is a requirement for all families accessing CCS to pay their full gap fees. As their Educator, providing education and care to their children, you are obligated to collect their full gap fees. There are significant penalties and possible convictions for Educators and the service if gap payments are not collected.
Please ensure you keep your invoicing and receipting up to date in Harmony. Regular receipting of payments assists you in keeping track of the accounts to make sure the closing balance on the invoice is correct. If you notice any discrepancies, please reach out to Harmony Support by raising a ticket or contacting your Administration Officer.
Importance of Signing Children in and out Please ensure that parents/guardians and contacts are signing in and out of Harmony, and pressing save, every time a child is in care. This can be checked by going to the e-signature tile on your dashboard. Pin Signing via the “Oops Message" should only be used if corrections need to be made due to incorrect signing.
Educators are to ensure that families have signed the child in and out of care for each session of care that occurs. Educators are not to use families' pins to sign the child in and out of care on behalf of a parent/guardian. In special circumstances, as defined by the service, wherein the Educator has to sign the child in and out of care, the Educator will ensure that notes are left on the attendance record to specify why the parent was not able to sign for the child. The service has the right to reject an attendance record and request parent signatures if they deem it is not a special circumstance.
We hope the information provided within this email is helpful for you. If you require any refresher training, please remember all training videos are located on the Enhance Educator Portal. Alternatively, you are welcome to reach out to your Administration Officer for additional support.
Kind regards Enhance Administration Team Carmen, Karen, Martina and Sharyn
Educator Alert | Emergency procedures
Emergency closure procedures
In the lead up to the festive season and the Enhance Family Day Care office closures, it is vitally important to ensure you are supported and prepared in the event of an emergency.
The Enhance FDC offices will be closed from Saturday 24 December 2022, to Sunday 8 January 2023, in celebration of the holiday season. If you experience an emergency during this closure period, please contact us via our emergency number, 07 3899 1655.
Emergency situations include:
When a child visits a doctor or the hospital due to an incident that occurred whilst in care.
The health and wellbeing of an Educator is affected and cannot work.
A confirmed case or close contact of COVID-19.
The closure of an Educator's service due to a natural disaster or if directed by Queensland Health.
Non-emergency situations include:
Enrolments of new children.
Changes in booking requests.
PIN issues or Harmony issues (please use paper timesheets if required).
The on call process for the holiday season involves:
Confirm the event as an emergency situation by referring to the above list.
Contact the Enhance emergency number (07 3899 1655).
Explain the situation and await assistance regarding appropriate action.
If an emergency was to occur i.e. a bushfire or flood, Enhance Family Day Care will make the decision to close a service, if schools in the area are also closed. If you have received an order to evacuate, or other warnings from an emergency service, please evacuate immediately and inform your Enhance service as soon as it is safe to do so.
In the event of an emergency, our primary concern is to ensure you, all children, families and the local community are safe. If our office is ordered to evacuate, you will receive an email from us informing you of our whereabouts.
Bushfires and Asthma Smoke from bushfires is a common trigger among children and adults with respiratory conditions, like asthma. In the event of an emergency, such as bushfires, it is vital to understand the risks and know how to take appropriate action. Asthma Australia has some helpful tips on how to minimise the effect of bushfire smoke, which can be accessed by clicking the button below:
Taking care this storm season With storm and cyclone season approaching, it is important to know what to do in the event of a natural disaster, this includes having emergency kits and plans in place. If you require assistance, please contact your Service.
For general information and resources on how to stay safe during a storm, please visit the Queensland Government's Get Ready Queensland website by clicking the button below:
R U OK? Mateship Manual The new R U OK? Mateship Manual provides guidance and tips to help you support a family member, friend, neighbour or workmate affected by a natural disaster or an emergency now and into the future.
Find out how you can help someone who's doing it tough because of a natural disaster or emergency by clicking on the button below:
I thank you in advance for your assistance in upholding these processes for the duration of the holiday period.
Kind regards
Cathy Cahill
General Manager, Children Services
Educator Alert | Emergency procedures
Emergency closure procedures
In the lead up to the festive season and the Enhance Family Day Care office closures, it is vitally important to ensure you are supported and prepared in the event of an emergency.
The Enhance FDC offices will be closed from Saturday 24 December 2022, to Sunday 8 January 2023, in celebration of the holiday season. If you experience an emergency during this closure period, please contact us via our emergency number, 07 3899 1655.
Emergency situations include:
When a child visits a doctor or the hospital due to an incident that occurred whilst in care.
The health and wellbeing of an Educator is affected and cannot work.
A confirmed case or close contact of COVID-19.
The closure of an Educator's service due to a natural disaster or if directed by Queensland Health.
Non-emergency situations include:
Enrolments of new children.
Changes in booking requests.
PIN issues or Harmony issues (please use paper timesheets if required).
The on call process for the holiday season involves:
Confirm the event as an emergency situation by referring to the above list.
Contact the Enhance emergency number (07 3899 1655).
Explain the situation and await assistance regarding appropriate action.
If an emergency was to occur i.e. a bushfire or flood, Enhance Family Day Care will make the decision to close a service, if schools in the area are also closed. If you have received an order to evacuate, or other warnings from an emergency service, please evacuate immediately and inform your Enhance service as soon as it is safe to do so.
In the event of an emergency, our primary concern is to ensure you, all children, families and the local community are safe. If our office is ordered to evacuate, you will receive an email from us informing you of our whereabouts.
Bushfires and Asthma Smoke from bushfires is a common trigger among children and adults with respiratory conditions, like asthma. In the event of an emergency, such as bushfires, it is vital to understand the risks and know how to take appropriate action. Asthma Australia has some helpful tips on how to minimise the effect of bushfire smoke, which can be accessed by clicking the button below:
Taking care this storm season With storm and cyclone season approaching, it is important to know what to do in the event of a natural disaster, this includes having emergency kits and plans in place. If you require assistance, please contact your Service.
For general information and resources on how to stay safe during a storm, please visit the Queensland Government's Get Ready Queensland website by clicking the button below:
R U OK? Mateship Manual The new R U OK? Mateship Manual provides guidance and tips to help you support a family member, friend, neighbour or workmate affected by a natural disaster or an emergency now and into the future.
Find out how you can help someone who's doing it tough because of a natural disaster or emergency by clicking on the button below:
In celebration of the holiday season, the Enhance Family Day Care offices will be closed from Monday 26 December 2022, reopening on Monday 9 January 2023. Whilst our offices and Child Care Support (CCS) Help Desk are closed, your Administration Team will be working to process your payments. We ask that you review the following checklist, including deadlines, to ensure we can assist you in your preparation for the new year and to maintain CCS and Family Assistance Law compliance.
Given that your payments are now processed weekly and the CCS Help Desk will be closed between Christmas and New Year, your standard payment scheduled on 3 January 2023, will be disrupted for this week only. Upon review, changes have been made to the payment schedule to ensure minimal impact on you. Please see table below for details on when payments will be made during this period.
Please find our checklist and deadlines for the holiday season below, outlining tasks relating to care from Monday 26 December 2022 to Monday 9 January 2023.
It is important to discuss holiday care requirements with your families at your earliest convenience. Please ensure you communicate with your families the days you will be available to provide care, allowing them sufficient time to make alternative arrangements, if required.
Please note: If attendance records are not submitted to the service each Sunday, as per the deadlines above, they cannot be processed with Centrelink and payment will not be made until the following week. We thank you for your support and assistance with preparing for the end of the year by meeting these deadlines.
If you have any questions, please contact your Admin Officer. From our family to yours, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season!
