Welcoming parents and families with Storypark

As we return to work with fresh energy and inspiration for an exciting year ahead, now is a great time to prepare for a thoughtful and stress-free welcome for children, parents and families as they return or start their journey with your early learning service.

This blog post shares some of the most successful tips and techniques practised by leading educators using Storypark.

Effectively welcoming and educating parents is an important step in helping set expectations and build trust and confidence in your relationship.

Services using Storypark have many innovative ways of communicating with parents, including:

• Writing private messages welcoming parents, asking questions about the families culture and context to learn more about the child, and answering any initial questions in a non-threatening, non-confrontational way (important for less confident parents) within a Storypark conversation.
• Sharing short videos or photos of a child’s first few days at a centre to show parents that their child is happy and settling in – reassuring them and getting rid of any worries or guilt they might be feeling.
• Sending regular community posts with news and information for children new to the centre through a Storypark conversation.
• Creating a new Storypark community for families who have enrolled but are yet to start – sharing notices, news and messaging to parents through this community. By creating a separate Storypark community for those children parents feel included, experience the centre’s commitment to including them in their child’s learning and can start building a picture of their child within Storypark before the child actually starts at your centre – all done without being able to see information about other children.

Sonya McIntyre of Owhiro Bay Kindergarten, NZ describes one of their techniques:

“Educators share a photo of themselves and a short introduction to parents. As the enrolment process is often dealt with by the head teacher/manager, introducing yourself in this way is a great start to building a relationship with the family. Also, if there are 2 parents, but you often don’t see one, it is a nice way to make BOTH parents feel involved and like they know you.
We also encourage them to add some photos of family, pets and people or things that are important in their child’s life, as this then helps us get to know more about their child when they officially begin. We also think it then helps the family take ownership of their child’s profile rather than view it as only being about the child’s life at kindergarten. This is so important to us, as we have found that some families are hesitant to add photos and stories that they are unable to explain with an educational lens.”

Shirley Fyfe, an educator from Victoria, Australia says

“Once families were enrolled at our service, they were invited to attend our annual Information Night in November last year where we shared quite a bit of information about using Storypark. We distributed one of the Storypark flyers and did a brief talk about how Storypark works and the benefits that it brought to our program and to our relationships with the children themselves and all our families. An orientation afternoon was held later in that same month where children and families could come and spend a couple of hours at the kindergarten. Children’s learning and development was mostly discussed BUT a few questions about Storypark also arose and many families indicated that they were looking forward to seeing how it all worked.”

When parents first get started with Storypark they usually want to know:

1. Why you are implementing Storypark
2. How will it benefit their child’s learning
3. Who owns their children’s information
4. How much it will cost them (nothing!)
5. How private and secure Storypark is
6. What they have to do next
7. How to invite family members

This info sheet is designed for you to share with parents to help answer these initial questions. We have also created an email template you can adapt and send to parents to let them know more about Storypark, and a suite of articles and videos available to help parents.

If parents have additional questions about security and privacy here are some key points:

• We work with ICT (Information and Communication Technology) security specialists to ensure we have the latest security systems in place, and we consult with early childhood specialists to ensure best practices.
• Storypark’s servers are based in Sydney, Australia and we comply with Australia Privacy Principles, New Zealand Privacy law, and other specific privacy laws in North America.
  (Note: If you have parents that want specific technical information just connect them with us by emailing hello@storypark.com).

To help you get the most out of your use of Storypark for parents, there are also graphics you can use on your website and posters you can put up in your centre.

If you’re not using Storypark yet but would like to be welcoming parents and families to your centre using some of these ideas, you can start a free trial here. We’d also love to hear from you in the comments, what are some of the ways you help families feel welcome in your practice?