Acorn’s ethic of care is deeply embedded throughout the organisation’s 16 settings, from the way in which children are nurtured and the way effective partnerships with their families are developed to the links with local communities and the way the group develops and cares for its employees. There is a focus on developing staff teams by encouraging them to develop their careers through their personal as well as professional development.
Acorn is a charitable social enterprise, so the financial model is atypical of the sector. It operates a cross-subsidy model in order to achieve affordability as well as high quality. This means that all the nurseries are supported to ensure they can meet their direct costs and overheads, but the expectations for each nursery to contribute to centralised costs are adapted to their socio-demographic catchment. This enables lower fees to be charged at nurseries in areas of deprivation, while still maintaining competitive salary levels in order to retain excellent staff teams.
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