Community-oriented childcare and training

Elmer is a community service that offers accessible childcare, in Dutch, in Brussels. Each Elmer is a neighbourhood-focused day care, and we give priority to people in the neighbourhood. We try to do this in the context of community participation, and with that goal in mind,  we also try to lead people to collaboratively work  to strengthen the neighbourhood and the families. 

Since the first days, I saw that my child loves to come to childcare, and in the evening I can’t get her to leave, she wants to keep playing. The childcare workers were very pleasant and I said to one who is also from Ukraine, 'Yes, it's a different concept of the nursery, a different concept of the school, I don't know anything like it.' I started to talk more to the childcare workers, and they've suggested that I can come here too,  and do a little activity with the kids. I thought that was great. And then, a childcare worker, Marleen,  told me that there are opportunities to come and work here and voilà. I tried, and it worked! Afterwards, when I graduated, I applied for a permanent position,  and I got a permanent position, of course.

In Elmer we have a lateral entry training, for long-term unemployed people or for people served by the OCMW (Belgian Public Centre for Social Welfare), and they can actually study  and work at Elmer. That fits right in  with our vision of social participation to support families. On the other hand, we give priority to people  who are already receiving training.

I’m Lhamo, I’m from Tibet. I’ve worked in all different parts of the kindergarten, and my daughter is always here, and it was very easy for me because I’m a mother, and I work here, and I get to bring my kids here. It's very easy for me. So, I can work and also take Dutch lessons. We try to get a nice social mix, by looking for a good balance between people who work and people who are in training. 

We try to have a 50:50 ratio. So we actually have a very flexible childcare plan, because lessons can change, at any moment a parent can find work, or go from a part-time schedule to a full-time one. So we also really think it is important that we enter into a dialogue with families, to really look at the child's care plan  in relation to the community participation of these families. Since I've been here, we've worked on parental involvement (EQUAP project), we've worked on Building Bridges, a project where we bring the outside world in for the kids, and Narrate by starting from the child's story and playing, working around playing and learning with a focus on pretend-play. 

And we also get opportunities to go to other countries to observe other daycares, to gain a little bit of experience. And the support that we get from regular meetings brought our professionalism to a higher level. 

Here at Elmer we do care for children with specific issues, and we just look very individually at what each child needs. So we always make an appointment with the parents beforehand, in which we really ask questions like what the specific care need is, what we can offer, who we are. And we look for a really tailor-made way. For example, is it about more time around eating? If we need special spoons or bottles, we will find them. Do we need a particular chair to support the child when standing up or sitting? We must always emphasise that we are childcare. We are not nurses, we are not doctors. So on a medical level we must look very carefully at what can be done, what is allowed,  and how we’re going to do it. But above all, that the child likes being here, that they can play,  that they can do their normal day-to-day things with us. 

If we create a safe environment and a relationship based on trust there, then that is a very good place to begin. And diversity helps with that. We have an open policy. We have a strong mission and vision, and values and standards, and we know that our childcare workers appreciate our open vision, our values and standards. That attracts people. And we really try to showcase ourselves as a big family that stands behind the same values and mission.