our Programmes
We have aligned our programmes with the quality indicators used in the Nationwide Audit in ECD Provisioning (Department of Education):
- Support refers to the management, governance and supervision at the ECD Centre. It also includes the monitoring and evaluation, subsidies and fundraising.
- Administration refers to the legal requirements, the financial and human resources and the programme planning.
- Programme refers to the ECD programme/curriculum implemented at the centre, the interaction with the children and health and nutrition.
- Educator Information refers to the qualifications, training and experience of the ECD practitioners.
- Service Integration refers to parent and community involvement at the centre and the referrals and outreach.
- Infrastructure and Environment refers to the buildings, equipment, learning materials and hygiene.
Basic Assistant Teacher Training Programme
Programme Objective
Over the years that we have been working in the ECD sector, we have discovered that given the level of education of the ECD practitioners and the demands and pressures on them as they care for many children, the formal NQF Level 4 training is very onerous, and we realized that we needed to develop a more practical and less pressurized training course to counteract this problem.
As a result, Divine Angels Day Care Centre has designed and offers a specific needs-driven training programme for educare support staff such as cooks, cleaners and less educated caregivers of young children.
Programme Description
Our plan is to have a sessions lasting approximately four hours with relevant stakeholders, which will be conducted fortnightly to cover the basics of early childhood development, as well as a range of other relevant topics such as the daily programme, safety, nutrition and details of resources available within the community.
The programme is based on sound principles of learning though play and activities, activities that enable learners fully to experience and cognitively structure their world. The programme also provides practical activities for practitioners and children using inexpensive and easily made educational materials.
Intended Outcomes
On completion of this training programme, practitioners should be able to:
- Give children the opportunity to discover and learn about their world, both natural and man-made.
- Plan lessons which are directed at the learning outcomes of three learning programmes: numeracy, literacy and life skills.
- Stimulate children to be observant and ask questions about what they think and see in the world around them.
- Be able to assess children’s needs in non-threatening and constructive way.
- Be able to discover learning outcomes for each activity in children’s development.
- Advise on health, safety and nutrition.
- Be able to make learning and development of children fun.
Monitoring and Evaluation
- Each ECD practitioners is expected to complete and present a portfolio of Evidence of Learning for the materials that have been developed and collected during the course of training, write a reflective assignment on each theme and present their handmade materials after each theme.
Coaching and Support Programme
Programme Objective
To coach and support ECD practitioners in meeting the minimum standards defined by the Department of Social Development in an 11-month period in terms of five areas of intervention:
- Premises and equipment
- Health, safety and nutrition
- Management and governance
- Working with families and communities
- Active learning
Intended Outcomes
- To improve the operating standards of our ECD site.
- To increase health, safety and nutrition at our ECD
- To enable our ECD to benefit from government subsidies.
- To make Grade R classes fully functional and improve numeracy and literacy at the basic level.
- To increase the quality of services offered to children in the ECD centres.
- To increase the number of women able to sustain ECD centres through quality management systems and programmes.
- To increase the number of children able to access ECD services.
- To increase awareness of the importance of education at foundational phase by stakeholders.
- To empower ECD practitioners with knowledge of the New Curriculum (OBE related activities).
Family and Community Motivator Programme (FCM)
Programme Objective
This programme is driven by the need to support vulnerable children and vulnerable families. Divine angels daycare centre believes that all caregivers and parents should be informed and involved in nurturing and enhancingthe physical, cognitive, social and emotional development of their children. The fcm programme aims to extend a supportive and capacity-building service to the caregivers and parents, tobroaden their knowledge base on the development of children and access to supportive services, as well asincreasing the families support-based network. This programme provides a primary level of intervention for care and support for the family at a household level. It is estimated that 50 percent of young children’s early childhood care and development interventions takeplace at home through parents, extended family members, older siblings and other caregivers. At the household level the following needs of young children should be met: psycho-social care and support, adequate food/nutrition, socialisation, breastfeeding, safe housing, safe water, good hygiene, birth registration, stimulation and play. The nip recognises that we need to develop a large number of ecd field workers who will be able to assess, support, intervene, and refer families and children as needed. This is due to the huge numbers of vulnerablechildren and families in our country.
The FCM programme aims to
- Raise awareness around children’s rights.
- Support the growth and development of vulnerable children from birth to nine years by increasing access to government services such as child support grants, with a key focus on the under-sixes in home and family settings.
- Enhance the knowledge and skills of caregivers regarding the developmental needs of children by building on their existing beliefs and child-raising practices.
- Support women and men in their role as primary caregivers and encourage men to play an active role in the lives of young children.
- Promote the inclusion of children with disabilities, chronic illnesses, HIV and AIDS and displaced or refugee children.
- Use a rights-based approach to address the power inequalities between men and women.
Programme Description
The focus is on the primary caregivers of children aged 0-9 years who are the child’s first teachers. The
motivators work with caregivers using an adult-centred developmental approach taking the needs of the
caregivers as well as the needs of the children into account.
- They identify the knowledge and skills parents and family members have and what information they need in order for them to support the healthy growth and development of the children in their care.
- They build networks of support for families by developing links to government services and other needed resources.
- They support caregivers’ efforts to access the child support grants, emergency food parcels and income- generating opportunities.
- They provide psycho-social support for the caregivers’ own needs and they monitor changes in the caregivers’ attitudes and behaviour towards the children.
- In everything that he/she does, the motivator starts by building on the caregivers’ own beliefs and practices around raising a child.
Intended Outcomes
- Increased community awareness of the rights of children.
- Increased number of children and caregivers who have information on community services.
- Increased number of children who are registered and can access Government’s social security system.
- Positive change in the parent/caregiver’s attitudes and behavior in caring and stimulating their children.
- Increased rate of referrals of children with special needs to social workers and service providers.
- Increased access to childcare information for parents and caregivers.
- Increased number of families accessing community services.