New Childcare

She should make a policy book outlining her requirements and expectations regarding late pick-ups, illnesses, vacation days, etc... She should have a contract with each family listing the days/hours of service and the amount she'll charge. If they don't show up, or are late, they will still have to pay. If she doesn't do this, she will be seen as a doormat and people will walk all over her. This happened to my mom when she did in-home daycare years ago.

redleaf press has some great contracts that you can at least get started with

I respectfully disagree with Gamma. I have in fact taken a family to small claims court. They took their children out with no notice. In our contract I had agreed to take a lesser amount for childcare for the first 3 months in order for them to work it into the budget. I told them I was willing to do this but that there was a 2 week notice in writing when either of us decided to terminate the childcare. The were flaky from the start and would not come on payday, forget the checkbook etc. they had not paid for a weeks care and then didn't come back. gave me reasons, kids sick, they will be back etc but found out the mom had moved in with them and was doing care for free. The point is that I had written in the contract that if for any reason they dropped out without the proper notice that they would be responsible for not only the 2 weeks pay but that it would be for my full amount not the discount rate. they violated the contract. the judge told them pay up. Something important about the contracts is to not just have them but know where you can lay your hands on them.

I've been doing a home daycare for years now!! I found a website that is beyond useful!!! Tell her to check out www.thedaycarelady.com It is a wonderful site with so much useful information. She has sample forms, contracts, policy suggestions, even fun stuff to do with the kids. I go to her website literally about once a month, just to check out new stuff she has shared. Everything on her site is provided free and everything is printable as well.
Also, I've done daycare for a long time & have tons of forms, contracts, etc.
I have an enrollment package for each family to complete prior to starting. It includes: contracts, rate agreements, sick policies, parent contact forms, emergency forms, vacation/holiday policies, pick up authorizations, etc.
If you'd like to see anything I have, feel free to ask!!
Like Hazel W. said, she needs to be clear with every family. She needs to turn it to a more business-like situation. No exceptions, otherwise everyone will try to take advantage of her (been there, done that!).
Good luck & hope that helped!!
J.

Your friend needs to be clear with everyone. Although it's been more flexible in the past, she will need to have 'same rules for all'.

A parent handbook helps. I've written two of them.

Yes, she should have regular, routine hours of care that she is willing to provide, and to make this clear. For example, if she ends care at six, she should expect to enforce this with measures to hold families accountable for picking up on time. etc. Families need to know if there is a late pick-up fee, if there is a one-time grace period for this, etc. She need to make some choices in this regard. As someone who has run a preschool from my home, I made it very clear when people were welcome to be on the property.

Payment should be uniform for all parents, in my opinion. If it's monthly, she might offer to take payments consistently on the 1st or the 15th of the month. There should be a short grace period (I offered three days) and then a reasonable per-day late fee. She should also be clear about when she will NOT provide care due to lack of payment. I personally think that six days out from the agreed-upon payment date is time to say 'please don't bring your child until I'm paid in full'. She needs to make this clear and then stick with it. There's nothing worse than getting a reputation as being too flexible on payments. People stop taking you seriously.

Are there fees or deposits she needs from parents? Also, how much notice does she want from them if they are going to move their child to another care provider. I recommend one payment cycle at least.

Create the daily routine. This should be a schedule which includes meals/snacks, times for some specific activities if possible (storytime, messy art, music and movement, outdoors play, free play), and naps. She should be clear about when meals are so parents dropping off later aren't expecting her to serve a meal she cleared up a half-hour ago. Routine is also important for the children. She should know what her 'day with the kids' looks like and be able to convey that.

Expectations: what does she need parents to bring, either to leave for her to store or for them to bring on a daily basis? How many diapers/wipes? Changes of clothing? What sort of outdoor clothing will they need? Will she be providing meals and snacks, or should parents be packing a nutritious lunch?

She should also have an illness exclusion policy which covers in detail when kids should be kept home.

In the care situation she's in, she might consider creating some sort of policy regarding exclusion due to aggressive behavior, and to be specific about when a child needs to go home. For example, a toddler biting is more appropriate than a six year old biting or aggressively hitting and should be treated differently.

I could go on. My best recommendation is for your friend to visit a couple local daycares, take the tours, and ask for a parent handbook if possible. This will give her some idea of what she might want to include.

Oh, and she might consider purchasing an insurance policy, or creating herself as an LLC as a firewall to protect her household interests. I did both to make sure we didn't lose the house, just in case a child was accidentally hurt.

In all reality child care contracts are useless. They will not be upheld in court if they were ever used. For instance, if a child care had a contract stating you had to give 2 weeks notice if leaving or pay for those 2 weeks for severance, if the family did not pay the severance and just left a judge would laugh a child care provider out of court if they filed for a judgement against the family that left.

At best it is a bit of leverage if the family does not know it is not a legally binding contract. It does not have any legal standing in a court of law. They can say it is not their signature, they can say it did not contain certain pages, they can say anything they want because it is not notarized nor was it filed as a contract anywhere like an attorneys office.

The best thing she can do and have a ton less stress is to have a very basic standard style parent handbook. It is something they will refer back to and hopefully they will like her enough to respect her preferences.

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This article was published by the State of Oklahoma but it contains tons of helpful ideas for starting a child care business. It gives step by step instructions from getting started to ideas to promote the business. There are lots of good ideas that are not particular to just Oklahoma.

The first step is getting the state regulations for having a child care home. It is parmount she not be breaking the state licensing laws. If they are a state like Oklahoma no children may be watched in the home that are not direct relatives. NONE, there are some states that are much more lenient but not many.

Here is a link to the MN state licensing agency.
http://www.mnchildcare.org/reqlic/

Here is one to the home licensing agency with information about getting licensed.
http://www.mnchildcare.org/reqlic/forhomes.php

I will add that the one main thing that providers forget or don't understand, kids are typically in child care an average of 10 hours per day. That is pretty standard for large cities.

For example:

Mom and dad work 8-5
Mom drops off little ones half hour before she is to be at work. She has a 15-20 minute commute. She gets to work, leaves for lunch, that's an hour added to the 8 she works, now she is there for 9 hours per day. The add another half hour to her getting to the child care building. If the boss or a co-worker don't stop her on the way out she may be on time, traffic and other obstacles can easily cause her delays she can do nothing about.

It is just much easier to have the hours of operation be something like:

Open 6am until close at 6pm. They are late if they are past 6pm, they are not late if they pick up anytime before 6pm.

http://www.lauriesliltykechildcare.com/aboutme.htm

http://www.childcarelounge.com/child-care-printable.php