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Business Support Team – provides information and support to providers setting up childcare businesses including childminders, out of school clubs, nurseries and pre-schools.
Who do we support?
We are a varied team with lots of different expertise and we really will turn our hand to anything! Anyone who wants to set up in childcare will usually have contact with our team at some point, whether it is a Development Officer for practical support and signposting or our admin team regarding grants. We work very closely with the other teams, including Families Information Service, Childcare Workforce Development and the Early Years Foundation Stage Team to make sure that Cheshire’s schools, childcare providers and children and their families have the best opportunities possible.
What do we do?
The Business Support Team provides a number of different functions to support childcare sector - to current providers, new prospective providers and schools.
We administer most of the local authority grants available to providers (except Nursery Education Grant and Individual Pupil funding) including Start Up funding, Inclusion and Access Funding and Quality Improvement grants. We also support the Project Outline Plan Process known as the POP Process capturing details of what externally run activities are happening on school sites and supporting schools to consult with the local authority.
Our team of Childcare Development Officers support childminders and out of school settings to start up their business whether this is a provider who is brand new to the childcare world or a school looking to run its own out of hours childcare service. We run Childminder Induction Training called Introducing Childminding In Cheshire or ICC in collaboration with colleagues from the EYFS team. In addition we provide ongoing quality support to the out of school settings across the county. The Childcare Development Officers support the Extended Services In and Around Schools agenda Childcare offer element by ensuring access to year round childcare for families.
Our Early Years Development Officer provides business support to early years childcare providers, such as nurseries and pre-schools working in strong partnership with the EYFS team. They support our EY settings to access a range of grants available and advise them regarding business related issues such as legal management structures and sustainability.
Our Inclusion Development Officer co-ordinates the Bridging Worker Service where a bridging worker supports families of disabled children to access childcare and works to build the capacity of childminders and out of school settings to be more inclusive. They also co-ordinate the distribution of the Include Me In grant and the Inclusion and Access Grant with support from the Admin Team. |