DIRECTOR’S INTRODUCTION

What a busy 12 months for our organisation. Almost before the ink was dry on last year’s annual review major changes within the childcare sector in Highland began to have a significant impact on  HPS. Following a round of network meetings, members attending the September 2006 EGM were brought up to speed with proposals and after discussion a unanimous vote approved a change of name to the Care and Learning Alliance (CALA) andto expand the organisation’s company objectives tomeet learning and childcare needs of children 0-16 (0-18 additional needs) and their families. It is fair to say that at that point we had little idea of the volume and scale of the work in front of us.

Since last September new staff have been employees with a wider out of school care responsibility.Out of School Playworkers have been transferred with protected employment rights from the Out of School Care Federation to CALA and new training and Quality Assurance programmes developed and delivered. Juggling this new development while maintaining support services to our early years members was a huge undertaking and one that the CALA Directors have been monitoring as it progressed.

Of course in addition to the internal developments the CALA staff team has also been involved heavily with emerging local and national government policies and initiatives. The GIRFEC process first mentioned at last year’s EGM is now well established in Inverness and progressing throughout Highland. The Chief Executive along with a number of voluntary sector colleagues has been working closely with the local authority, health and police developing a voluntary sector reference group to ensure the needs of our sector are recognised and that the sector can actively participate in appropriate planning and delivery of essential, children’s services.

At a national level CALA has contributed to the development of new standards and guidance for the Scottish Executive’s proposed Level 9 degree/degree equivalent qualification, to be launched in October of this year. Work has also continued with colleagues in the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) and Care Commission.

As early as November 2006 the Directors recognised that as an organisation CALA required some fairly radical restructuring to be undertaken to ensure longer term viability for the future. A decision was taken at this point to monitor the similar process underway within the Highland Council and to ensure that when CALA did reorganise the new structure would complement the new working structure of the authority. In April, CALA undertook a major review leading to a new streamlined organisation delivering a range of support services but focusing on peripatetic management services.

All of the company Directors wish to commend the hard work undertaken by the senior staff team to ensure CALA met the tight deadlines we set for this work to be completed.

Capt. Alan Kennedy, Director

QUALITY ASSURANCE AND TRAINING

With the additional demands brought by new out of school care services the training team did not have far to look for new targets. In addition to a total of 38 days being delivered to early years practitioners in Moray and Highland through the Local Authorities’ formal in-service programmes, a number of new courses covering a broader age range, 0-12, have been delivered. These include Behavioural Training, Risk Assessment and Active Play.
Workshops were also delivered to a mix of professionals using the popular Play @ Home materials. Attendance at these included Health Visitors, Early Years Support workers, Family Support Workers and a breadth of practitioners.

The popular Play and Learning into Practice (PLIP) foundation course was delivered 3 times over the year to a range of playstaff  from new to the sector to those wishing to reaffirm their understanding of child development practice.

Childcare Partnerships in Highland and Argyll and Bute have supported the development and delivery of a new programme of support relating to the national guidance for Birth to Three. A range of models of delivery are now tried, successfully tested and available, relating to this quality framework. More deliveries are scheduled for the coming year and a number of centres are investigating the purchase of the more focused support programme to continue to develop and improve their services for very young children.

Over 780 trainees have accessed training from CALA over the past year.

Internal Quality Assurance continues to be carried out with all CALA’s managed centres both Early Years and Out of School. This is a major component in assisting centres and clubs maintain and improve the quality of their service.  In addition the CALA Quality Manager continues to work in close partnership with Highland’s Quality Assurance team on Early Years practice and Child Protection and with colleagues in Moray on Improvement planning and review.

CALA’s links with Highland and Moray Accredited Training (HiMATS) remain strong with large numbers of CALA and centre staff  accessing recognised qualifications through this SVQ route. This will continue to be of vital importance as we progress registration with the SSSC.

Peripatetic Management
As in our other areas of work this service area also expanded greatly over the recent months. CALA now manages 46 centres, delivering a range of childcare and early years education. Wrap around day care is now available from 3 of these centres. As CALA moves forward in this area of work we will continue to work as a key partner with the Highland Council to deliver tailored childcare to each associated school group around Highland.

Recruitment and retention of staff remains one of CALA’s biggest challenges. Those familiar with the issues in the sector nationally will fully appreciate the difficulty in maintaining a quality service while the sector continues to be sorely underfunded throughout Scotland. While there is some evidence of support from recent and current government initiatives sadly we have a distance to travel before playstaff are rightly recognised with appropriate pay and conditions of service. However at this time CALA employs  41 support core staff, 185 playstaff,   relief support and  additional needs workers in addition to the 119 staff working on the successful CALA staffbank.

Family Support
It has been a difficult year for family support services within CALA; a mixture of highs and lows. The successful Forward with Families project was dealt a fatal blow with the withdrawal of funding in March 2007. This brought a close to this additional support work in Inverness, Sutherland and Skye and Lochalsh.  
However work with the Family First teams in East Sutherland and Skye is busier than ever. In these two areas at the moment we are working closely with 88 parents and their 114 young children. 21 of the families gain direct one to one home visiting support.
Exciting new models of family support are developing in the West Ross-shire area. A newly appointed “Family in Focus” co-ordinator took up post in July and already strong working links have been developed between the local health teams and Family in Focus to ensure that the tailored group service is directed to the areas in most need of additional support. Recent recruitment for the CALA staffbank has introduced a new strand of work opportunity. 8 staffbank workers are currently in training and will deliver targeted, short-term  home-based support linking closely with social work and health teams.

CALA Staffbank
Working closely with colleagues in Direct Childcare, the CALA staffbank continues to grow and, as detailed above, move into new areas of work..  Currently 119 workers are signed up to the bank with a large number now working over 20 hours every week. It does seem that every time the bank undertakes another recruitment drive and the numbers swell, so too, does the demand on service. Opportunities exist for staff to link their work experiences, delivering relief cover to early education, daycare centres and out of school clubs; working in creche and sitter services and from August the new home based family support.

General Support
The Gateway project helping Early Education Centres revisit, and where necessary, revise their employment practices, continues to be a much sought after service. Over the past year a number of voluntary run centres benefited from one to one support, helping to review their internal practice on staff recruitment practices, contracts, disciplinary and grievance procedures and staff appraisal procedures and plans. From August 2007 this service will now be offered to all the CALA membership in Highland both Early Years and Out of School clubs.

Another service to be extended in Highland, but this time from Out of School to Early Years is free payroll support for voluntary committees. Any enquiries about this service should be directed to the CALA Dingwall office.

The facilitation of Disclosure checks remains a busy area of our support to members. Both our Inverness and Dingwall office have registered signatories able to take this work forward on your behalf.

Members have continued to be supported over the year by group visits from Centre Practice Managers and/or Early years Officers. While we acknowledge that this has always been welcomed by members, in Highland the models of support seem set to change over the next few months. We will be continuing with face to face support in Moray but looking to develop a range of alternative communications between CALA and our members in Highland as out focus increases inperipatetic management.

Finance
We are pleased to recognise the support from our main funding partners the Highland, Moray and Argyll and Bute Authorities. Agreements are in place for 2007/2008 and we are looking forward to yet another busy year.
Welcomed additonal funding from Childcare Partnerships in Moray and Highland has sustained a number of projects; working with toddlers and parents, out of school support and additional staffbank development

Project work becomes more difficult to source as foundations and trusts also sqeeze their available budgets. However CALA will continue to investigate appropriate funding options with a range of external partners whenever possible.We are currently looking at a bid with the Big Lottery and the European Social Fund. Our thanks to Lifescan Scotland Ltd. for their continuing support with the Inverness Toddler programme.

Additional Needs Grant. Over £75,000 was paid out to 40 early years centres in Highland last year supporting 70 children. A more integrated process has been recently introduced to assess and award grant for this session. CALA is working with the Highland Council’s, Early Years and Childcare team and Educational Psychology Unit to jointly assess and award grants. In addition centres will be offered support visits to help then identify strategies for improving their service with children who have additional needs. Members are asked to be aware of the a new forms and process when seeking support.

CALA continued with the distribution of the small group grant. Over 30 groups benefited directly from this grant from the Highland Council’s Childcare Services budget.  Our appreciation is given to the Highland Council for this valued funding support.

Learning with Lullabies
Our thanks to Christina Stewart who has worked closely with the CALA Toddler Support team developing and delivering the lullaby workshop to parents in Skye and Lochalsh and Inverness over the past year. 80 workshops have been delivered among 20 groups.  The feedback and evaluation of this project have been extremely positive and we now have an opportunity of participating directly by listening to the CD “Bairn’s Kist”. Christina  developed the CD pulling together much of the material she used on the project.

Retaining a focus on music and movement a funding bid is being considered at the moment looking at developing a workshop and accompanying musical activities for out of school clubs.

Ann Brady
Chief Executive
September 2007