Eunpyeong-gu Operates 'Open Childcare Centers' to Prevent Child Abuse

Eunpyeong-Style Open Childcare Center Project to Eradicate Child Abuse Starting in June

Interview with Childcare Teacher

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Eunpyeong-gu (Mayor Kim Mi-kyung) has prepared a project from June to eradicate child abuse and create a safe childcare environment, encouraging active participation from parents and fostering communication with daycare centers to build a trusted childcare environment by operating the ‘Eunpyeong-type Open Daycare Centers’ targeting public daycare centers.

The Open Daycare Centers, led by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, are daycare centers with expanded facility openness and parental participation to eradicate child abuse. They are selected based on five indicator areas: openness, participation, sustainability, diversity, and local government’s own selection criteria, with daycare centers scoring above the standard points being chosen.

However, some daycare centers face difficulties in selection due to challenges in creating a physical environment despite wanting to participate in the Open Daycare Centers. To solve this issue, the ‘Eunpyeong-type Open Daycare Centers’ project was initiated.

The district relaxed the selection criteria to allow more daycare centers to participate, and many public daycare centers plan to supplement their shortcomings through participation in this ‘Eunpyeong-type Open Daycare Centers’ and gradually be selected as Open Daycare Centers.

Looking at the local government’s selection criteria, communication channels are established by opening a chat room for all parents within the center to promote active communication between parents and the director. Easy communication methods via mobile platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are used to share parenting information and infant-related event materials. Various selection criteria were prepared to enable childcare teachers and directors to freely and frequently communicate to identify and resolve issues within the home.

Also, from February this year for about three months, in establishing local government selection criteria related to communication between parents and childcare staff, sufficient guidance on understanding and the purpose of the indicators was provided through interviews, meetings, and public daycare center union meetings with public daycare center directors.

As a result of communication with daycare centers, all 79 public daycare centers applied, and after a preparation phase starting in May, the ‘Eunpyeong-type Open Daycare Centers’ plan to focus on communication with parents from June.

Through this, it is expected to be very helpful in sharing stories that can empathize with each other through routine communication between infants’ families and daycare centers.

A daycare center official said, “At first, opening a group chat room was quite burdensome, but when using it for urgent announcements such as the current COVID-19 situation, seeing posts filled with parents’ understanding, encouragement, and empathy made it more of an advantage than a disadvantage.”

A district official said, “We will do our best to ensure the successful implementation of this project to eradicate child abuse, and we will also actively strive to continuously provide child abuse prevention education for childcare staff and improve treatment to boost staff morale.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.