Jazmyn T.

Smith
Ad. Ldsp 583: Financial Management & Planning in Early Childhood Programs
Finance Project: Stafng Pattern Analysis Narrative
Week of April 27, 2014

For my nal nance project, I completed Stafng Pattern Analysis of my current
program. The program that I work for is a pediatric nursing facility that provides care for
children with exceptionalities. While it has three rooms, infant, toddler/preschool, and school
age, the school age room is not included in our child care license. The school age room is a
charter funded by UWM and a variety of other sources. The stafng analysis is based on the
infant and toddler/preschool rooms of the program.

As you look at the Stafng Pattern Analysis, you will see two lists of children and
one list of staff. Youll also nd the times that the children in staff are in attendance. The
children have fraction of staff per child listings as well. The numbers in this column were
determined by the state of Wisconsin, and are their current licensing standards. Ive included
a reference chart below.

After determining the fraction of staff per child, I then added them together to
determine the class totals. After determining the class total, one can determine how many
staff are needed at a particular time. For example, my class total was 1.000 at 8:00 A.M. in
the infant room. This tells me that one staff member is needed in that particular room at
that time in order to met state licensing staff requirements. If I were to get an odd number
such as 1.250, I would need two staff during that time because you cant have a fraction of
a person caring for children.

My initial reason for choosing the Stafng Pattern Analysis was to determine if our
program managers have staffed accordingly. My co-workers and I have often felt
overwhelmed and had a strong belief that we were understaffed. We would often take extra
time to complete simple tasks, and were certain that our tasks seemed to consume co much
time because we didn't have enough hands to complete them. This project proved otherwise.

After the completion of my Stafng Pattern Analysis, it was clear to us that we were
not understaffed, but had the staff we were required to have- and some! After examining
the possible reasons as to why we felt so overwhelmed, we came to a conclusion. While this
should have been obvious, we were slow to discover that the reason we felt so overwhelmed
and that we weren't getting things done in a timely fashion is because we arent providing
care for your average children. Changing the diaper of a two-year-old is a lot more simple
when you dont have to empty and measure the contents of an ostomy bag during the
process. It also takes less time. We have now a better system in place that helps us provide
the best possible care for our childrenand in a timely and efcient manner.

(The staff and child attendances are consistent throughout the week so only one staffing analysis
spreadsheet that covers Monday thru Friday is available for viewing.)


Age Group
Maximum Number of
Children per Staff
Fraction of Staff per
Child
0 to 2 years 1 to 4 0.250
2 to 2 1/2 years 1 to 6 0.167
2 1/2 to 3 years 1 to 8 0.125
3 years 1 to 10 0.100