Dr James Reilly, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, has today signed
new Child Care Regulations (the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services)
Regulations 2016) which will come into effect on a phased basis from 30th
June 2016. The new Regulations provide for pre-school services, that is,
those services catering for children under the age of 6 who are not
attending primary school.
The Minister said that he is publishing the Regulations now to give Tusla
the Child and Family Agency and early years service providers some time to
prepare for the commencement of the new Regulations by way of training and
information sessions.
The revised Regulations were prepared following the amendments to the Child
Care Act 1991 which were made under the Child and Family Agency Act 2013,
and which were required to underpin a number of key reforms to the sector
to improve quality standards.
Some of the main changes in the new Regulations are:
Registration
The 2013 Act introduced the requirement for early years services to be
registered with Tusla before being permitted to operate. The new
Regulations set out the procedures that will be carried out by Tusla when
deciding whether to register a pre-school service, including the documents
that a prospective service provider must submit with her or his
application. Before deciding on registration, Tusla will carry out a
pre-registration visit to ensure that the premises are fit-for-purpose as a
pre-school facility.
Qualifications
The new Regulations require that all staff members working directly with
children in pre-school services must hold at least a major award in early
childhood care and education at level 5 on the National Qualifications
Framework, or a qualification deemed by the Minister to be equivalent.
This requirement will come into effect for newly-registering services on
30th June 2016, and for existing services on 31st December 2016.
Management
The new Regulations require that all pre-school services demonstrate that
they have a clear management structure in place, and that each member of
staff is aware of her or his specific role and responsibilities. All staff
must be appropriately supervised and provided with training where
necessary, including training in the pre-school service’s policies and
procedures.
As well as ensuring that all staff have been Garda vetted, the service
provider must ensure that robust human resources procedures are in place
for the recruitment of staff, including the seeking and careful scrutiny of
references. The onus is then on the registered provider to ensure that
staff new to the service are supervised and monitored on an ongoing basis.
It is essential that providers have a proper management structure, and
proper procedures in place, to ensure that their staff are properly managed
and supervised in order to ensure that the children attending that service
receive the highest quality care.
“I am delighted that the new Child Care Regulations are now being
published”, the Minister said. “The new registration regime, which will
require that a service be registered with the Agency before opening, will
help to ensure that children attend services that are suitable, of high
quality, and safe. The regime will also require services to re-register
every three years, and Tusla can impose conditions on the service if it
does not comply with the Regulations.”
The Minister also referred to the regulatory requirement that from the end
of this year all staff working directly with children in pre-school
services will have to hold a minimum qualification at Level 5 on the
National Qualifications Framework. “This is a very important development,
and we know from international experience that it will raise the quality of
the service for children.” The Minister acknowledged the hard work
undertaken by staff in the sector to meet this requirement.
The Minister added that he wanted to assure the early years sector that
Tusla, in association with his Department and other relevant organisations,
would provide information sessions to service providers before embarking on
any new inspection process. “In particular”, he said, “the Quality and
Regulatory Framework that will be used by Tusla for inspections will be the
subject of consultation with stakeholders before it is finalised later in
the year, and will be made available to service providers so that they are
aware of what will be expected of them.”