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Daycare regulations like it or not, are necessary. Many view them as an inconvenience, designed to make our lives more difficult and a constant reminder of the increasing red tape in our day care businesses. Although our world in general appears to becoming more bureaucracy happy much of this legislation exists for a reason. More importantly, much of it is there to help protect those who are most vulnerable in our society.

Minimum standards of care are the bedrock of daycare regulations despite being seemingly stringent. Quality, early childcare that is constantly improving and evolving can mean so much more than the rulebook. My service benefits from my inspections and regulations because I use them as a yardstick, as a guideline for how my service could be improved.

Instead of perceiving them as a threat I embrace the knowledge contained within the daycare regulations and inspections reports to improve how I do things. If I were to hire an expensive consultancy firm to evaluate the effectiveness and quality of my business I don't believe they would provide me with as much relevant, valuable information. My regulations booklet and local licensing team give me all the guidelines I need.

Enter my day care and you will find a copy of the daycare regulations posted in several vital, highly visible spots including beside my desk. I make it a golden rule that, following my inspections, the report becomes my constant companion until I have addressed every point raised. Then, the report also gets posted in all those visible hot spots along with a little sticker that reads 'Done'. In my experience, the 'points' raised in the report tend to be helpful tips towards operating more effectively and safely on day to day issues rather than pointing out major violations. I take these tips seriously and rush to implement them because they are coming from a veritable font of daycare regulations knowledge - your inspections team have been there, done that and wear the tee shirt daily.