{"id":7322,"date":"2021-09-28T16:39:18","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T06:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/?p=7322"},"modified":"2023-09-12T14:34:15","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T04:34:15","slug":"the-compliance-software-helping-little-locals-go-big-on-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/the-compliance-software-helping-little-locals-go-big-on-sustainability\/","title":{"rendered":"The compliance software helping Little Locals go big on sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.littlelocals.qld.edu.au\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Little Locals<\/a> is an environmentally-conscious early education provider in Queensland, Australia dedicated to nurturing future generations, supporting modern families and building communities.<\/p>\n<p>With five established centres, and growth in the pipeline, the family-owned and operated group takes a collaborative approach to the learning process by observing and adapting teaching techniques to support the individual needs of each child.<\/p>\n<p>Environmental and sustainability education is incorporated into their learning programs <em>Greener Minds<\/em>, in which nature is explored, valued and looked after in daily activities, and their sensory-rich <em>Bush Kindy<\/em>, which allows children to explore diverse natural environments every week.<\/p>\n<p>Little Locals is also the first early learning group in Queensland to be a certified <a href=\"https:\/\/lowcarboneconomy.com.au\/listing\/little-locals-early-education\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Carbon-Neutral Business<\/a> so, when a review identified vast amounts of paper being used and time wasted using such paper-based processes, Director Jacek Gajewski was desperate to find a solution.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little_Locals_4.jpg\" alt=\"Little Locals Image - 1Place \" width=\"488\" height=\"366\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>A software solution with the environment in mind<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Before finding 1Place, Jacek says team members would use paper for most regulatory procedures; printing forms, scanning them, saving them \u201csomewhere\u201d on a computer, and physically filing them.<\/p>\n<p>The cumbersome process not only took educators away from doing what they should be doing, \u201cwhich is looking after, playing with and educating the kids\u201d, but also failed to align with their environmental values.<\/p>\n<p>The organization has 220 employees and is licensed to educate 900 students across its five large centres. They had already made changes to reduce their paper use by moving their 28-page parent handbook online but it was still adding up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were going through close to 100,000 pieces of paper per year. This would have doubled when we got to 10 centres, and tripled to 15 centres,\u201d says Jacek.<\/p>\n<p>He says the scanning and saving system \u201cwas a mess\u201d and made it difficult and time-consuming to find specific files.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we grow, we\u2019ve got all of these educators spending all this time manually processing forms. It was problematic. That\u2019s what prompted us to look at what solutions are out there in the marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He found 1Place Childcare by chance while visiting the <a href=\"https:\/\/kidsoft.com.au\/integrations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kidsoft<\/a> website and organised a demo with centre managers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe realized it was going to help us in terms of time, efficiency, and environmental impact,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Little_Locals_1.jpg\" alt=\"Little Locals Image - 1Place \" width=\"228\" height=\"304\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Reduced paperwork and streamlined processes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1Place Childcare is now available via an iPad in every room for educators to carry out regular checklists, log incidents, and create maintenance tickets, helping them stay on top of their day-to-day responsibilities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf there\u2019s an issue, they\u2019ll take a photo of it, and that comes through to the centre manager and they review it,\u201d Jacek says.<\/p>\n<p>Each centre and assistant manager have elevated privileges to close out incidents via the app.<\/p>\n<p>Maintenance issues, previously texted or called ad-hoc to another business partner, are now identified in daily checks and logged through 1Place with a photo to assess.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow he can assess and coordinate what needs to be done with the centre manager,\u201d says Jacek.<\/p>\n<p>Such issues had never been tracked, and Jacek is excited by his newfound visibility across the organization.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPreviously, I would\u2019ve been clueless about the current maintenance issues. Now I can go into 1Place and search by date, centre or priority, see the open ones and which have been resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Online compliance brings peace of mind<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As an offsite director, Jacek receives a daily report for each centre in his inbox, telling him how they track their compliance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPreviously, I wouldn\u2019t have known. Now I get it daily, and I like that it\u2019s in my emails. It\u2019s there in the morning, I can see it, and it takes me 30 seconds to follow up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf there are more red crosses than green ticks, I\u2019ll send a follow-up to the relevant centre manager to remind them to stay on top of the checklists,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Because excursions are part of their <em>Bush Kindy<\/em> program, the bus checklist is one he pays particular attention to &#8211; which must be signed by two people.<\/p>\n<p>1Place Childcare makes everyone accountable, he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf they\u2019re signing it, they confirm that this essential physical check has occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He says 1Place Childcare compliance and best practice software have improved how they operate, freeing up time for their educators and positively impacting their environment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe investment is worthwhile. It is a niche; I\u2019m aware of no software solution that does all of this specifically for childcare. It has to be quite specific, and it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Little Locals is an environmentally-conscious early education provider in Queensland,  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":7323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[143,121],"class_list":["post-7322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-study","tag-case-study","tag-little-locals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7324,"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7322\/revisions\/7324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1placechildcare.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}