Registered child minders may work alone in their own homes, but they are early years professionals and should have a contract with parents, just as larger settings do.

I would have an initial meeting with parents looking for childcare; tips on what to say here

When the parents had agreed to me looking after  their child I wrote out a contact which clearly stated the days and hours  that the child would be coming, plus the fees that I charged ( as well as an hourly fee I added on the cost of attending toddler groups and any other places of interest that we visited).

I made it clear what would happen if a child didn’t attend; due to sickness , a holiday or another reason.i.e. I would charge half fee for holidays providing I was given 2 weeks notice ( I could sometimes take on another child while one child was on holiday as I worked for a few supply teachers who only needed me ‘if and when’ they were offered work). If I was given less than 2 weeks notice I charged the full fee, I didn’t charge for my holidays as I wasn’t available and parents needed to make other arrangements.

If a child was sick I still expected to be paid as this is what I was advised to do at my foundation course (unless a child was in hospital).

I would give the contract to parents to take home and read in their own time, I asked them to sign it if they were happy with everything and bring it back for me to countersign: My contracts were in triple form providing a copy for me; a copy for parents  and the 3rd copy was for parents who were living apart and co-parenting here  

or any other party involved with the childcare, such as a social worker. If the 3rd copy wasn’t needed I would destroy it.

On a few occasions parents ‘tried it on’ when it came to payment:-

One parent who had booked a place for her 2 children  phoned me on the first day to say that her youngest son was unwell and because she had to take time off work to look after him she wouldn’t send the older child either, so she wouldn’t owe me any money? I didn’t challenge her over the phone, but wrote her a letter on headed paper explaining that she had signed a contract stating that payment was still due, the day she received the letter she phoned again to tell me that one of the reasons she and her husband had chosen to send their children to me was because I came across as professional and of course she would pay when the children had recovered and returned to my setting.

Another parent came along with her mother in tow and told me that she had booked a fortnights holiday and didn’t see why she should pay for childcare that wasn’t needed then. I calmly explained that child minding was how I chose to make a living, I wasn’t a charity  and pointed out that she had signed a contract which clearly explained payment; again, she ate humble pie and asked if I required payment before she went or came back from her holiday.

Something to be aware of is an incident that a member of staff at my local child minding association brought to my attention; she told me that a parent had questioned her child minder about taking minded children on the school run- the child minder had gotten the parent’s consent to take her child on outings, but the parent insisted that the school run wasn’t an outing! After this  I added outings including’ the school run’ to my contracts, to cover myself.

Another parent who was from a different country  would make out that she didn’t know when our bank holidays were ( I charged full fee for bank holidays as advised at the foundation course) we were told that as parents would be paid for bank holidays so should we.. if a parent wanted me to have a child on a bank holiday because they had to work then I charged double fee.

Hopefully this hasn’t scared any new child minders; most parents are fine with payment, you just need to stick to your guns when challenged.

As always questions and comments are welcome.

Until next time.

Karen

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