Cooperation between home and early childhood education providers
Communication with Educators
The objective for cooperation between the family and the early childhood education is to create a good basis for the education partnering between the parents and the personnel. Good and functional cooperation promotes safe attendance to day care. The educators get to know the parents before the child attends day care and the parents have the opportunity to talk about their hopes and expectations.
Cooperation between the parents and the early childhood education is based on everyday in-teraction. The parents and the early childhood education have yearly discussions considering each child individually. Based on these discussions, they make an early childhood education plan describing the child's growth, development, and learning. Additionally, the early childhood education arranges PTA meetings, where you can network with other parents and talk about topical issues.
In addition to daily conversations, parents can settle discussions with the educators and the director of day care center.
What should I do if I’m not satisfied with my child’s early childhood education?
A child is entitled to safe, high-quality early childhood education. However, sometimes the guardians have questions about early childhood education or they are unsatisfied with some aspect of it. In these cases, you should first attempt to resolve the issue by contacting the day care centre’s personnel or, if necessary, the centre’s director. Usually any issues can be resolved through discussion and no other measures are needed. You can also give feedback on the services provided via the City of Vantaa’s feedback channel.
If the issues in the early childhood education place cannot be resolved through discussion, the guardians have an option to submit an objection (Act on Early Childhood Education and Care, section 54) about the operations to the to the head of an day care centre in charge of operations, to a person in charge of a site or to a senior officeholder of early childhood education and care. The guardians have the chance to also submit a complaint of the early childhood education services to their supervising authority, the Regional State Administrative Agency (‘AVI’).
Act on Early Childhood Education and Care, section 54 § (In Finnish) >
- The client drafts the objection using a form. An objection can also be submitted as a free-form letter. Client can use the same form for either municipal or private early childhood education providers.
- The objection should give as much detail as possible on the issue or issues that the client is unsatisfied with. There is no deadline for submitting an objection, but it is recommended that one is made as soon as possible to facilitate processing the issue.
- Objections about municipal early childhood education services should be addressed to the City of Vantaa, by email via kirjaamo@vantaa.fi or by mail to address City of Vantaa, Kirjaamo PL 1100, 01030 Vantaan kaupunki. Objections about public early childhood education services should primarily be submitted to the people in charge of the services in the location in question.
- If the objection features any personal identification data (such as ID number) or sensitive information (such as information related to the child’s health or support measures or the family’s other private life), it should be sent by post for data security reasons.
- An objection will usually be handled within a month after it has been submitted, unless it is submitted during established holiday times when this response time may be longer. If resolving the issue takes longer than this, the estimated processing time will be reported to the person who submitted the objection.
A well-founded response will be given to an objection which will clarify how the objection has been reviewed and what kinds of further measures it may have led to. It is not possible to appeal the response given to an objection.
Muistutus varhaiskasvatuksen toiminnasta(pdf, 1.33 MB)A complaint can be submitted when a resident of a municipality is unsatisfied with a local public or private early childhood education service. A complaint can be based on matters such as suspected unlawful practices or neglected obligations of a municipal employee or municipal officeholder.
The complaint is addressed to the supervising authority. The supervising authorities of municipal early childhood education and care are the Regional State Administrative Agency (‘AVI’) and the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (Valvira). The supervising authorities of early childhood education and care organised and produced by a private service provider are the Regional State Administrative Agency, the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (Valvira) and an officeholder assigned to the role by the local authorities.
A complaint can also be submitted to the Parliamentary Ombudsman if it is suspected that an authority or an official has not followed the law or fulfilled their duties or if the complainant suspects that basic or human rights have not been upheld as appropriate.
The complaint must be made in writing. With the consent of the supervising authority, also oral complaints are possible. The complainant must present their perspective on which grounds they believe that the proceedings have been incorrect and, as far as possible, state the time when the suspected proceeding or neglect occurred. Submitting an objection does not have an effect on the right to submit a complaint of the same issue to the supervisory authorities. The regulations of Section 8a of the Administrative Procedure Act concerning administrative complaints will be applied to the complaint. Please note that a complaint submitted regarding a matter older than two years will not usually be investigated unless there is a special reason for it.
More information:
The National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (Valvira) >
The regional association of Vantaa parental associations is VANVARY
The association is the cooperative body of parents in Vantaa and registered parental associations. The association works together with the early childhood education and care sector, comprehensive schools and upper secondary education institutes.
VANVARY brings the parents of different schools and day care centres together and creates structure for city-level cooperation. The regional association will also affect the daily life in schools and day care centres that do not have their own parental association. VANVARY organises shared meetings, discussion and training events for parental associations and informs its members of the operations of the committees and the umbrella organisation. The association submits proposals and initiatives and contacts the authorities to achieve the necessary renewals. It will communicate with the Finnish National Agency for Education and other necessary authorities.
VANVARY is the influencing channel of parents in Vantaa, a municipal cooperation forum for parents and parental associations with an all-volunteer staff, which makes its work especially valuable. It carries out its work for the good of children and young people in Vantaa, in cooperation with the parents and the different operators and service providers working for children and young people.
VANVARY and Vantaa early childhood education
The cooperation between the early childhood education and care sector and VANVARY creates a good basis for children and guardians to continue the parental association work in comprehensive school as well as more extensive cooperation.
Establishing a parental association
Suomen Vanhempainliitto (the federation of parental associations in Finland), early childhood education and care in Vantaa and VANVARY all want to promote the creation member companies in the early childhood education and care sector, i.e. parental associations.