Portfolios

[momofsix]

How many of you keep portfolios on each child in your care? Is it mainly for your own planning or do you "conference" with parents?

I was looking at this http://www.focusedportfolios.com/order.html
but wonder if something like that is really necessary or if it's something I could pull off on my own with information from the internet to guide me?

[melilley]

I'm interested in what other people say about this! I have been wondering the same thing. It seems like we could just do it ourselves. I don't know if you are doing the Great Start to Quality Stars program, but we have to do conferences and assessments so I am curious on what others do because I'm going to start doing conferences soon!

[momofsix]

I'm interested in what other people say about this! I have been wondering the same thing. It seems like we could just do it ourselves. I don't know if you are doing the Great Start to Quality Stars program, but we have to do conferences and assessments so I am curious on what others do because I'm going to start doing conferences soon!

If by conferences you mean discussing things at pick up/drop off I do them too. If they mean we actually need a conference scheduled at some time other than daycare hours??? NOT going to happen-my off time is too precious to me and to my families!

I filled out my Stars self assessment when it first came out. They were supposed to come out and visit me last October-never happened. Then they went and changed things again. I have not had the time in the last 9 months to go over it all again
Really I don't need the stars-I get all my clients from word of mouth anyhow-I've never taken a client that's gotten my name from the state website. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for that yet.

[melilley]

If by conferences you mean discussing things at pick up/drop off I do them too. If they mean we actually need a conference scheduled at some time other than daycare hours??? NOT going to happen-my off time is too precious to me and to my families!

I filled out my Stars self assessment when it first came out. They were supposed to come out and visit me last October-never happened. Then they went and changed things again. I have not had the time in the last 9 months to go over it all again
Really I don't need the stars-I get all my clients from word of mouth anyhow-I've never taken a client that's gotten my name from the state website. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for that yet.

I know, they were really disorganized and vague with the program the first time! Now, they only come out if you assess yourself at 3 or 4 stars. And yes, they want you to have conferences at least every 6 months, but I don't think it has to be after hours. I haven't done one yet so I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I will for sure limit them to 10 min. max! I also talk to parents at drop off/pick up so there isn't much to discuss besides the assessments that I have to fill out.

I don't think I have gotten one call from the state website either! For some reason at first, I thought it was mandatory to do the self assessment, so I did it and then redid it. I have 3 stars and to get any more, some of the requirements are out of my reach! I'm the only provider in my area so far that has a star rating so I don't even know if most providers know about it.

[Patches]

I hae been to a couple trainings for focused portfolios and was required to do them at a center I worked for. I liked them. I have been meaning to start doing them here but haven't gotten started. They helped me assess the children a little bit. The center mostly wanted to do it for parent conferences, but the parents didn't care

I didn't click your link so I don't know what they have online but I have the book with all the blank forms. If you need any info or forms out of it, I would be happy to share

Just clicked the link and saw it was an order page. let me know and I can send you some stuff from the book

[BumbleBee]

I have a black binder for each child.

I use the assessment at this link http://ecdc.syr.edu/wp-content/uploa...pdated2012.pdf (I'm not in New York but I've found this checklist to work best for my program)

I jot down notes if necessary. I keep a sample of different art work/writing/pics of stuff they're doing with each child's binder. I write up child assessments twice a year. I give a copy to the parents and a copy goes in the binder. Some parents want to talk about the assessment, some don't. They're always free to look at their child's portfolio. When the child leaves my care, the parents can take the binder with them.

I have parents sign off on having their child assessed.

I've uploaded an assessment write up I did a few years ago. It's a PDF file since I couldn't get my Word file to work.