• home
• keywords & contacts
• guidance/practice
• contact us
• search
• full contents

In partnership with parents and carers, Wakefield MDC has a duty of care to maintain safety and welfare of all children who access its Early Years Services. This includes a shared responsibility to ensure that appropriate arrangements are made to ensure that children are collected from nursery at the end of each session. This document outlines the procedures in place to ensure appropriate collection arrangements are agreed between nurseries and parents and the actions which will be taken should a child remain uncollected.

Agreeing collection arrangements:

Hours, days of attendance and names of agreed collecting adult/s must be discussed with the Nursery Manager and detailed within the Nursery / Parent contract. Those collecting children should be over 16 years of age. Flexibility in hours can be accommodated where needs are diverse, however any changes to this agreement must be made in advance.

Contact details of parents / carers and emergency contact person will be held on children's application records and changes must be regularly updated. Parents are asked to ensure that any changes to contact details are communicated to nursery staff.

If a child is not collected:

Every effort will be taken by the Manager or Deputy to contact parent carer as soon as possible. If the parent / carers cannot be contacted then the emergency person will be contacted. If all attempts to contact a parent / designated person fail then the Manager / Deputy shall contact Social Care Direct to inform them about the situation without delay and will also inform their Area Manager.

The duty social worker should then decide the next course of action and decide whether other partner agencies should be involved in helping to trace the parent / carer. Should the parent / carer not be contacted, the duty social worker can make appropriate arrangements for the child to be safely cared for until their safe return to parents.

End