Continuity of Care

These last four months I have been in Continuity of Care (COC) rooms and I thought I would share my reflections on a reading about COC rooms.
These rooms keep a group of children and their caregiver together until pre-school. The groups can be all the same age, or mixed ages like the rooms I have been in.  Unlike traditional rooms when children move up when they are a certain age or reach a specific developmental milestone such as walking. This leads to detrimental transitions as much as every six months, requiring the child to rebuild trust and confidence with new caregivers and peers every transition.
The goal of COC rooms is to promote deep and secure attachments to develop between children and their caregivers, and also allows parents and caregivers to develop trusting relationships as well. Infants and toddlers greatly benefit from continuity with their caregivers because strong attachments are required for healthy brain development. The COC rooms resemble family care or nannies and allows bonds to form between caregivers and children, as well as between the children themselves. It is less stressful for the children because they do not have to worry about new transitions, places, or people, and are therefore free to learn and play at ease. COC rooms also provide parents with more comfort knowing that their children are safe with a trusted and known adult with whom they feel comfortable sharing their concerns. In multi-age rooms the children are more relaxed and calmer. They develop at their own pace but are also challenged by older peers and help to teach younger children. They learn caring behaviors and empathy as well as self-care. These behaviors are taught and learned more naturally in COC rooms than in traditional rooms because of the diversity of skills.
COC rooms also benefit the caregivers, giving them comfort knowing the children that will be in their classroom and how they behave and react to specific actions and stimuli.

For further reading about COC read NAEYC's publication Relationships, the Heart of Quality Care. 


Baker, Amy C., and Lynn A. Petitt.Relationships, the heart of quality care: creating community among adults in early care settings. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2004. Print.