For further information and prices or for any queries please contact Jeremy Webster on [email protected]
Our constantly changing world presents Early Years businesses with many challenges. Early Years consultants and advisers need to develop a high level of business consulting skills, in addition to their own specific areas of expertise, in order to effectively provide the support that owners and managers of childcare settings need to deal effectively with these challenges.
Accredited by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), the UK’s leading professional body for managers, consultants and advisers, the Childcare Business Advisers Programme, which is in its 12th year, has been redesigned in line with the newly revised CMI qualification framework. We use a blended learning approach to support local authorities with the development of their team of consultants and advisers.
The programme acknowledges the impact on Early Years providers of what is happening in the UK economy and assumes that:
- Some areas of the UK economy are being hit hard by challenges faced by the economy as a whole. This is resulting in job losses in certain sectors and lack of staff in others. In some areas increased levels of hardship within our communities are having a significant impact on parents’ ability to afford childcare fees, and their eligibility for funded places.
- The growth of ‘hybrid’ working patterns post-COVID, with parents expected to work from home all or part of time on a permanent or long-term basis rather than to travel to an outside place of work every day, has caused them to rethink their childcare needs. Being able to offer flexible options to suit parents’ working patterns is becoming more critical than ever before.
- An evolving funding regime presents further challenges to providers with many of the business models previously used to create a sustainable balance between funded and fee paying places being closed off.
- Advances in the use of AI and other technology are moving at a pace which is constantly accelerating and changing our world in ways that few of us could have imagined just a few years ago.
- Providers will need to be increasingly agile in order to adapt as the situation changes. Being able to anticipate the future and react with agility are crucial characteristics for consultants and advisers to develop.
Features of our blended learning programme
The Childcare Business Advisers Programme is designed to cover the syllabus of the Level 5 Award in The Principles of Management Consulting, a degree-level qualification awarded by the Chartered Management institute (CMI).
By completing the post-course assignment, which is externally marked by CMI examiners, you can gain this important qualification to demonstrate your competence.
You will learn about:
- Essential consultancy skills
- Tools to support each stage of the consultancy cycle
- Overcoming communication challenges facing a consultant
- Establishing credibility through an ethical approach to consulting
- Adding value to your clients through your role as an adviser.
The programme teaches the key skills and knowledge to confidently add value to Early Years and Childcare providers, whatever your team members’ roles or specialisms.
What do participants on previous programmes say?
“It brought out some of the skills that maybe I wasn’t aware I had – it’s given me more confidence to go into settings”
“This course has helped me grow in confidence. It has shown me that I had a wider range of experience than I gave myself credit for. The knowledge I have gained has enabled me to provide a greater breadth and depth of support to the clients with a greater focus on the financial and growth elements that previously would have been passed on to a different team member.”
“This qualification has enabled me to really look at the work that I do for my clients and how I manage that relationship.”
“This has been a confidence building exercise recognising my strengths and what colleagues and clients think of me, but more importantly, it has helped to identify my steps in terms of my continued professional development.”