General Information for Volunteers

Campus child care centers utilize volunteers to support and enhance high quality programming for the children and families in care. You are welcome to visit any of the 8 child care sites, or contact the Office of Child Care and Family Resources, to determine which site best suites your interest.

The goals of the UW-Madison Child Care System are:

1. To support, strengthen, and expand child care systems while fulfilling academic needs including instruction, research, and outreach programs.

2. To assure student, faculty, and staff parents a choice of high quality model child care programs that are based on best practices in various locations across campus.

3. To assure high quality affordable child care options that are responsive to the needs of student, faculty, and staff parents, flexible enrollment options, care for children with special needs, care for mildly ill children, and special events care.

4. To provide an organized administrative structure of campus child care and a collaborative system to provide a mechanism to increase resources, improve and assure quality and consistency of care, and provide a wider range of programs and services through coordination, technical support,and collaborative long-range planning.
To meet these goals, the campus child care system boasts education and care centers based on best practices within eight unique sites, with individual missions, where children ages 6 weeks to 12 years of age are served. All programs operate on a year-round basis with some offering additional summer programming for school age children; all are licensed by the State of Wisconsin and accredited by the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs and/or the City of Madison.

Philosophy

All campus programs at UW-Madison are based on providing a high quality early education experience for our youngest scholars. To that end, each program provides a supportive and enriching environment that will foster each child's social-emotional, cognitive, language, and physical development. UW programs strive for a balance between those nurturing aspects of a home environment and social and learning opportunities provided in a group early childhood setting. The typical day provides opportunities for free play, dramatic play, stories, music, art, science, math, language arts, and computer use. Special activities such as field trips and creative movement are also a part of the program.

UW programs encourage development of social skills such as playing, sharing, communicating, and management. Children are encouraged to express their ideas and feelings and to grow in self-confidence and independence. Everyday activities and routines encourage children to develop self-help skills, responsibility, and the ability to make decisions.

WE WELCOME YOU TO CONTACT OUR CAMPUS CHILD CARE CENTERS/PROGRAMS!