Pusteblume remains „Family Center NRW“

If problems in children’s education arise, only few parents like to go to public counselling centers. Most of them prefer asking for support in a family center. That is one of the reasons why the Childcare Center Pusteblume of Studierendenwerk Aachen initiated the recertification process to be “Familienzentrum NRW” for the second time.

In 2008, “Pusteblume” was the third of twelve childcare centers run by Studierendenwerke NRW to be certified. Since then, the childcare center has been continuously working on the audits that recur every four years. “We have to meet more than 60 quality requirements in order to be able to remain a Family Center”, explains Gaby Schneider, head of the childcare center and responsible for the Family Center. Parts of the requirements are certain pedagogical services, professional work on early childhood education and parent education as well as the organization of intercultural projects. Experience pays off: In the last audit the childcare center was certified for its “high quality and exceptional variety of counselling and support offers for families”.

Good networking
The points communication, networking and public relations got very good results. “We want to reach as many parents as possible. Therefore, it is important to have a large network and to promote our offers using as many channels as possible”, says Gaby Schneider, who joined together with seven other Aachen Family Centers on her own initiative and set up the first “Family Centers Work Group” in 2014. The work group’s aim is to improve the coordination of the centers. “We inform, make new contacts, always keep an eye on trends and developments and continuously look for cooperation partners and ideas for interesting courses. We noticed that all these tasks are more successful when we work on them together!” The work group needs a lot of commitment as the childcare teachers run it in addition to their normal work in the childcare centers – 48 children of student parents are taken care of in the Childcare Center Pusteblume.

Commitment that is rewarded: With the grant of 13 000 euros per year the Family Center Pusteblume can invite speakers and course instructors for special topics in addition to the courses given by the center’s teachers. The course program that is published two times a year offers classes for children and parents. Thanks to the recertification, families in Aachen will be able to profit from the program in the next four years.