The new "Jardin de Capucine" crèche brings a breath of fresh air for young CERN parents

On 19 January 2011, CERN's Director-General, Rolf Heuer, signed an agreement with the company "Le Jardin de Zébulon" for the provision of 40 places at the "Jardin de Capucine", a new private crèche due to open this autumn.

In 2008, the "Jardin de Zébulon", a private bilingual crèche for children aged 1 to 4, was opened by Ariane Boucheron at the Technoparc industrial estate in Saint-Genis Pouilly (France). The following year, the number of places was increased from 20 to 37 to meet demand. The "Jardin de Zébulon" has taken in a number of children of CERN personnel ever since it was created.

With no let-up in the demand for new crèche places, Ariane Boucher is currently engaged in the construction of a new centre, the "Jardin de Capucine", next-door to the existing crèche. Forty places at the new crèche will be reserved for people working at CERN. "This new agreement has been drawn up in response to a long-standing need and will help members of the CERN personnel to reconcile professional with family life," says Rolf Heuer. "We plan to reserve a number of places for associate members of the personnel, who sometimes come to CERN for short periods and therefore have specific needs."

Ideally located between CERN's two main sites in Meyrin and Prévessin, the two private crèches are determined to meet the increased demands of parents in terms of quality of service. "The key to our success lies in the quality of care we offer the children, as well as the flexibility and availability we offer in order to meet parents' requirements," stresses Ariane Boucher.
 

Rolf Houer and Ariane Boucher sign the agreement for the new crèche.

How the crèche will operate

The "Jardin de Capucine" will accommodate children aged 4 months to 4 years. The crèche will be open all year round, with the exception of French public holidays and CERN's two-week end-of-year closure.

It will open from 7.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. Mondays to Fridays.

Children can be enrolled for regular attendance of between 1 and 5 days per week. Enrolment must be on the basis of a minimum day of 9.30 a.m. to 3.00 p.m.

Children will be supervised by a 12-person educational team, who will be managed by the head of the crèche and assisted by a qualified nurse. Meals will be prepared by a professional cook on the premises. The crèche will be subject to the same requirements as public establishments and will not open until it has received all the necessary authorisations.

The crèche's educational philosophy will be geared towards development through discovery and its activities will be bilingual (English and French).

Allocation of places, enrolment and tariffs

Places will be open to the children of all categories of members of the CERN personnel, irrespective of their place of residence (France or Switzerland).

In allocating places, priority will be given to parents who already have a child in the crèche, to single-parent families, to families where both parents work and to associated members of the personnel; in other cases, places will be attributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Enrolment is now open. The enrolment formalities must be completed with the crèche manager directly.

The tariffs, which cover day care, meals, snacks and nappies, vary according to the age of the child:

• For children up to 12 months: 1550 euros per month for full-time care or 77 euros per day,
• For children aged between 1 and 4 years: 1450 euros per month or 72 euros per day.

Further information, in particular details of the opening date, will be published on the following website: cern.ch/hr-services/Ben/Social/Capucine.asp

by HR Department