Running A Successful Business

For many years, much of the general public has viewed early care and education providers (including those who provide care to school-age children) as babysitters.

Families rely on you to be much more than a babysitter for their children. In your daily work, you make conscious, intentional decisions about how to interact with children and parents. You may also be faced with difficult ethical situations. Ethics is the study of right and wrong, duty and obligation. Following an ethical code can help with those decisions. With guidance from mentors or family childcare administrators, you should strive to set and maintain positive examples of professionalism in your daily interactions with children and families.

A family child care provider who wants to behave in a professional manner must acquire the skills and knowledge needed to work with children, youth, and families. Understanding children’s development across a variety of ages is absolutely essential in family child care. Individual courses within the Virtual Lab School provide extensive information on the specific topics you need to know in order to expand your knowledge and skills as a family child care provider.

Smartphones and social media have become a way of life for most of us. In your daily interactions with children or youth, you should be very careful about handling social media. Photographs or information about children and families in your family childcare home should be carefully shared if using social media.

For example, you should not post pictures without prior consent for families, and you should consult with your Service or licensing agent to understand the policies around using social media as a way to communicate with families in your family childcare program.

You should always think about how new technologies can affect children and families and maintain confidentiality at all times.

You should also consider how information you share about yourself may affect you and be careful about what you post on social media.

Effective procedures and efficient processes are essential to your success as a family child care provider. Running a well-organized family child care program requires keeping everyone informed, handling paperwork, professionally addressing problems, and managing day-to-day tasks and administrative responsibilities.

Some of your responsibilities will be to interview and provide orientation to new families, manage money, maintain necessary documentation, plan for substitutes and personal vacations, prepare for emergencies, and keep your home in good repair. You must comply with the laws and regulations that relate to your business. Families will depend on you to keep your program running smoothly.

• Initial and Renewal Inspections: The application process to become a licensed or certified family childcare provider includes an inspection of your home. The inspection is done by your licensing agency, family childcare administrator or other person designated by your licensing agency or Service. In most instances, an inspection also takes place when you renew your license or apply for accreditation.

• Routine Inspection: These inspections can occur annually or at regularly defined intervals throughout the duration of the license or certificate.

• Complaint Investigations: If a complaint about your program is submitted, a complaint investigation is normally required. These inspections will be unannounced, and the investigation of a complaint requires a licensing agency or family childcare administrator to address each aspect of the complaint.

• Changes to Your Program: If you make certain changes in your program, you might be required to have an inspection. Reasons to request a change to your program could include utilizing a new area of your home that was not previously used for childcare purposes, or a modification or major change to your existing childcare spaces. Depending on the specific change, you may also need to have fire safety and environmental hazard representatives' complete safety checks. Keep in mind that in most cases, moving your residence or completely changing the location of your family childcare requires application for a new license or certificate, and will require new inspections.

A Navy CYP administrator will have access to records that you will not share with anyone else without parental permission. Here is a list of things you need to have on file, readily accessible when they come to your home:

• Fire inspection and evacuation plans

• List of the names, addresses, sex, and birth date of each child enrolled in your program

• Updated list of parents’ names, addresses, telephone numbers and places where they can be reached in an emergency

• A list of the names and addresses of the people authorized to take children in your program from your home

• Daily attendance records

• Children’s health records

• Health statements for yourself (to be completed yearly in most cases)

• Statement regarding the health of all the people living in your family child care home

• Sample plan of program activities or daily lesson plan

• Information regarding alternate assistants and back-up providers who are available to care for the children when you are absent or ill

• Documentation of completed required trainings

As a business owner, you must you be prepared to keep track of your monthly revenue and expenditures for tax purposes. It is a good idea to buy a receipt book to keep for your records. It is also a good idea to work through deductions allowed for using a private home for business purposes. You are classified as a self-employed person and are responsible for paying taxes and keeping track of fees and expenditures.

You will need to be aware of information and requirements for Social Security payments. Check with your nearest Social Security office for current information. If the combined family income, including your earnings, is too low to pay income tax, using deductions is not the best method. If the combined income is at a level where you pay income tax, check with your Internal Revenue Office to determine whether the work involved in keeping records is worthwhile. Two types of expenditures or costs are possible when taking tax deductions: direct expenditures, such as cost of food and toys, and indirect expenditures related to the use of your house, such as rent, utilities, mortgage payments, etc. Consult with your attorney or accountant to ensure you are keeping track of necessary expenses.

hen a family is considering your family child care home, they are preparing to make a very important decision to entrust you to keep their child safe from harm, keep them healthy, provide appropriate developmental opportunities, and love and nurture them. You can help families make suitable choices for their children by allowing them the opportunity to evaluate whether your program is a good fit for their family. You are also helping parents provide good care for their children when you give them information and resources.

Share with prospective families’ information about your program, yourself, and any other providers or community members who work in your program, including assistants, back-up providers, your family child care administrators, and your family members living in your home. Also let them know they are welcome to spend time at your program when their child is in your care and look over your records about their child. You will need to get some information from families when they enroll a child in your program. This includes:

• Name, sex, date of birth, and address for each child

• Each parent’s name, address, telephone numbers

• Contact information where each child’s parents and others responsible for the child can be reached in an emergency

• Names and addresses of each person who is authorized to take the child from your program

• Children’s health records that include:

  • parent’s consent for emergency medical treatment

  • evidence of current health examinations and immunizations

  • list of allergies or chronic illnesses

  • a record of illness, injuries, and any indications of child abuse or maltreatment

  • the name and dosage of any medication used by a child and how often the medication is needed

Once you have been contacted regarding an opening in your family child care home, you should have a plan for how to gather information from applicants. Consider how you will learn more about each applicant. Do you want to talk to them on the phone? When will you meet with them in person? How will they fill out and submit an application?

Conducting a family interview can help you decide whether or not a new family will fit well with you and current children and families in your program. This is a good time to be up front. Demonstrate to parents that you are a professional child care provider and you are ready to work with them to support the growth and development of their children.