Free Day Care Contract

You must determine how many and what ages of children you will accept. To assist you, consult your state and local child care regulations. The ages and maximum number of children that a facility can accept is usually regulated. If too many children are allowed, the result might otherwise be an excessive number of accidents or a decline in the overall health standard.

The physical size of your facility may affect your decision. For example, state and local child care regulations often impose minimum square footage requirements for both the inside and outside of a facility. Further, the ages of the children will dictate the type of equipment and supplies that you will need. Outdoor equipment such as swings, tricycles, sandboxes, and slides, take up a large amount of space. These space considerations must factor into the decision of how many children you can enroll.

If you have any concerns regarding the maximum number of children that you can realistically and adequately provide care for, then it is recommended that you begin with a small number. Later you may feel that you are able to add more children. If instead you started out with too many, it is difficult to terminate the care of one or more children with whom you have developed a relationship.

A clear and concise Day Care Contract protects parents and guardians as well as the child care providers. The purpose of a Day Care Contract is to define and document the arrangement between the parties so that misunderstandings and surprises regarding the expectations of each party can be avoided. Although it might be tempting to keep things as informal as possible, when issues such as child care fees and hours of operation are involved, it is important to put the information in writing. For example, having a written Day Care Contract protects the child care provider in the event a problem, such as nonpayment, arises. Without putting your agreement in writing, it may be difficult to prove the substance of your oral agreement.

Any issues that you want to be binding on the parents should be included in the Contract. For example, child care fees, due dates, and policies regarding child or provider absences, holidays, and vacations, should be included in the Contract.

When deciding what to include in your Day Care Contract, remember that you set the rules for your child day care program. Include provisions that you need to make your operation efficient and profitable, but you must also keep a balance between what would be included in the "ideal" contract and what the competitive marketplace will bear.

You should check your state and local regulations governing child care providers for other provisions to include in your Day Care Contract. Child care regulations range from pre-admission interviews with parents to methods for properly sanitizing food preparation and diapering areas. The Day Care Contract does not attempt to address all of the laws and regulations governing child care providers.

Please note that your state and local child care regulations must be followed carefully even if they differ from the recommendations or suggestions in this program.

There will be situations which require that a child should be disciplined. Discipline may consist of "time-outs," setting or re-defining limits, or re-directing a child's attention. If the misbehavior continues, it may be necessary for the provider to discuss the child's behavior with the parent.

You may also find it helpful to utilize positive reinforcement when a child exhibits good behavior. This will encourage the child to continue this behavior.

You should consult your state and local child care regulations for possible guidelines and restrictions regarding discipline.

You should compile emergency telephone numbers and post them near each telephone. You should also develop emergency evacuation plans and post them at each exit. For assistance with developing a suitable evacuation plan for your child care facility, consider contacting your local fire department.

It is important that you develop advance procedures to be followed in case of an emergency. These procedures should be explained to the children who are old enough to understand. After you have developed such emergency procedures, such as an evacuation plan, you should run occasional test drills with the children to practice and perfect the procedures.

It is important that you obtain from each parent the name, relationship and telephone number of an emergency contact person for the child. This information will be needed if the parent cannot be reached in an emergency. The emergency contact person should have the parent's permission to make necessary decisions for the child. It is preferable if the emergency contact person is located in close proximity to the child care facility.

When determining what your child care fees should be, you should weigh several factors. For example, consider the fees that child care facilities in your vicinity are charging, your expenses such as food and equipment costs, the value of your time, your qualifications, and the age of the children you plan to accept.

In order to evaluate the value of your time, first, determine the number of hours you will be working directly with the children each week. Add a few extra hours per week for time spent updating records or shopping for supplies. Next, determine what hourly wage you think you can earn. This hourly wage may not be as much as you would like to earn but you should factor in the rewards of working with children and the opportunity of running your own business.

Your qualifications may be measured by your training and/or experience. For example, parents may be willing to pay a little more for a highly-qualified child care provider, such as a provider trained as a teacher or in healthcare.

The age of the children you will be caring for is another important factor. You may want to charge higher fees for an infant than for a toddler because the infant will require more personal attention.

Next, you must determine whether parents should pay you daily, weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly. This is simply a business decision. Whatever you decide, consider requiring all payments to be made in advance because you will need operating funds to run your child care business.

Consult your state and local child care regulations to determine whether you are required to post your child care fees so that parents can easily see them.

It is inevitable that the cost of supplies, such as food and equipment, will increase. Therefore, you must consider how you will handle child care fee increases. Perhaps you will want to increase fees on an annual basis. Whatever you decide, be sure to provide parents with sufficient advance notice of the increase and perhaps a brief explanation for the increase.

You should specify in your Day Care Contract on which holidays your child care facility will be closed, such as New Year's Day, Memorial Day, the 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas. If you expect to be paid for these holidays, you must make this policy clear.

You should encourage parents to inform you of their vacation and holiday plans early. This will help you in planning your activities. Some child care providers require parents to pay the regular child care fees even while the child is on vacation. If you do choose to require such payment even when the child is absent and the parents are unhappy with this policy, you should offer the parents an explanation. For example, explain that you must charge your regular child care fees because it is not likely that you will be able to find another child to fill the absent child's space during that period. In essence, the parents' payment of child care fees during the vacation reserves their child's space while the child is absent.

You must also consider how you will deal with your own vacation time. For example, will you charge your regular child care fees? Will you provide a substitute provider? Or will you shut down your care facility and not charge any fees? If you choose to shut down, parents will need to make alternate child care arrangements. Therefore, you should plan your vacations well in advance and provide parents with adequate time to make those arrangements.

List the hours that your facility will be open to provide child care services. Your hours should try to accommodate the needs of working parents. However, you should also be sensitive to your own family's needs and schedules.

You should not allow parents to fall behind in paying for child care. The Day Care Contract gives you the option of charging a flat fee for each day that a payment is late. As a last resort, consider terminating child care services. The Day Care Contract provides for this option.

Many states have laws regarding the necessary disclosures for charging late fees on past due accounts. If you plan to charge late fees, you should review the necessary disclosure information for your state and then incorporate that language into your Day Care Contract. Consult a lawyer for additional assistance.

You might also receive a bad check from a parent. The Day Care Contract provides an option for charging a fee for returned checks. Contact your bank to determine what charges it will assess against you for the return of a check. The fee that you charge parents should be reflective of that fee. Also, consider requiring that parents whose checks are returned must begin paying all future child care fees in cash.

Consult your state and local child care regulations regarding whether you need to obtain a license before operating your own child care facility. Some states may require all child care providers to be licensed. Others make licensing dependent on the number of children cared for. If you have the choice, you may choose not to obtain a license for various reasons, such as to avoid inspections or because your operation will be too small to justify the added bureaucracy.

Even if you are not required to obtain a license and, therefore, are not subject to state or local regulations, you should become familiar with those regulations because they may become applicable as you grow and/or they will provide you with useful ideas. This program does not attempt to summarize each particular state's or municipality's child care regulations, but below are listed several Internet sites which may be useful.

Licensing regulations may range from requiring pre-admission interviews with parents to requiring properly sanitized food preparation and diapering areas. Regulations may also specify child-to-staff ratios and/or require that a child care facility be inspected for safety. Safety inspections might include checking the placement of electrical cords, fire extinguishers, first aid kits, and cleaning supplies.

Some licensing regulations may require a child care provider to obtain training in early childhood education. Some states or municipalities may even regulate the type of activities or programs that a child care facility can offer.

The physical location of your child care facility may also be regulated. For example, if you want to open a child care facility in your home, you should consult your city's zoning ordinances, your neighborhood homeowner's association rules, and/or any applicable restrictive covenants to determine whether you can operate such a business in your home. If you are in doubt, consult a lawyer. He or she should be able to assist you in determining whether a particular zoning ordinance prohibits you from operating a child care business out of your home.

You should also be aware that some licensing regulations establish minimum space requirements for a child care facility, such as a minimum square footage area per child for both inside the care facility and outdoors.

Licensing regulations may also establish health standards and guidelines for child care facilities, such as requiring the provider to maintain a file for each child's medical information or, for large facilities, even requiring that a licensed nurse be present at the facility, or immediately accessible, in the event of an emergency. Some licensing regulations may require that the children undergo an annual physical examination and obtain various immunizations.

Some states or localities may even regulate the food that a child care facility provides. For example, some states may prescribe the child's food criteria based upon the length of time that a child is at a child care facility, or require the facility to provide a certain percentage of each child's daily nutritional requirements pursuant to the United States Department of Agriculture's ("USDA") nutritional pyramid.

It is critical that before you open your child care facility, you research which regulations may apply to you. These regulations must be complied with, and it is recommended that you incorporate them into your Day Care Contract.

You can obtain more information on state licensure regulations on the Internet at http://nrc.uchsc.edu. This Internet site has linkages to all fifty states' licensure regulations. In addition, you must research whether your municipality has adopted its own child care regulations. Educational information on child care in general can also be obtained on the Internet at http://www.childcare.net.

Most likely, the child care facility will be responsible for providing breakfast, lunch, and snacks for the children attending the facility. Consult your state and local child care regulations which may even require midmorning and midafternoon snacks. However, even if they are not required, such snacks are common in child care facilities. Examples of snack foods include fresh fruit, cookies, and juice.

You should also consult your state and local child care regulations regarding nutritional requirements for the meals that you serve. For example, the regulations may require that the meals served contain one-third of the United States Department of Agriculture's ("USDA's") daily allowance of each of the four food groups.

If you will be caring for infants, you should obtain from the parent a feeding schedule so that you know how much and what the infant should eat. To save time on measuring and sterilizing, consider requiring the parent to furnish the formula or baby food for the infant.

Some children under your care may require special diet foods. Unless you want to prepare these foods, you should require the parent to furnish these special diet foods. You also must educate yourself on the reactions that a child may have as a result of consuming certain foods and what is the appropriate response.

It is important that you obtain from the parent the necessary authority to provide medical treatment for a child. If a child needs medical attention, you may also need the child's medical insurance information. The Day Care Contract requests this information and authorizes the provider to obtain the necessary emergency medical care for the child, including but not limited to transportation to an emergency room. It is the parent's responsibility to pay all costs and expenses incurred in connection with any medical care provided to a child, including the cost of transportation.

You must determine whether you are willing to administer over-the-counter or prescription medication to a child. Before you administer any medication, you should require the parent to complete a medication consent form listing the type of medication (for example, baby aspirin or penicillin), the dosage, the time of day it should be administered, and any side effects or special instructions (for example, should not be taken on an empty stomach). You should also require all medications to be in the original container with the child's name clearly marked on it.

To encourage parents to pick up their children promptly and to respect your time, consider imposing an overtime fee. For example, you could impose a $10.00-per-15-minute overtime fee or a $1.00-per-minute overtime fee.

If you decide to impose an overtime fee, be sure to enforce it uniformly because parents will become resentful if the policy is not uniformly enforced.

You should establish procedures for the pickup of children from your child care facility. For example, you could require written authorization from a parent if someone unknown to you will be picking up a child.

You should also find out from the parent if someone, such as a noncustodial parent, is not to have any contact with the child. If this is the case, then it is important that you take extra precautions to ensure that you do not release the child to that person.

An initial registration fee is a one-time payment that a child care facility may charge, to be used for a variety of purposes, such as to hold open a child care spot, to offset the cost of processing child care documents that parents must complete, or to pay for supplies.

The registration fee can be either refundable or nonrefundable. If it is refundable, it is recommended that it be credited toward the child's last week of child care fees, held in the meantime as a type of security deposit for nonpayment of fees.

To determine the amount of the initial registration fee to charge, consult other child care facilities in your area to learn the amount that they are charging. Your initial registration fee should be set at an amount that is high enough to require parents to be truly committed to your child care facility.

Establishing a clear sick child policy will help you avoid having to deal with parents on a case-by-case basis as to whether or not their child is well enough to attend your facility.

It is important that you obtain and maintain medical information about all of the children under your care, such as their immunization record and personal medical history. In fact, some state or local governments may require this.

You should adopt a written procedure to be followed in case of an accident or illness. Then, inform parents of your procedure.

The Day Care Contract contains a provision granting the provider authority to call a physician and obtain any necessary emergency medical care. This gives you the ability to act quickly.

Some child care regulations may require that child care providers be trained in first aid or cardiopulmonary resuscitation ("CPR"). Training in these areas may prove to be extremely important in saving a child's life. It could also lower your insurance premiums.

1. The Day Care Contract should be signed and dated by both the Child care Provider and the Parent(s) or Guardian(s). It is not necessary to have the signatures witnessed or notarized.

2. Retain a copy of the Contract in your files. Give a copy of the Contract to the Parent(s) or Guardian(s).

3. A filing system is useful to keep track of each child's documents.

4. You may need to periodically update the saved information in the Day Care Contract, for example to reflect a fee increase or adjustment in the hours of operation, so that you can create a Day Care Contract for a new client.

There will be times when you will be unable to provide child care services perhaps because you are ill or need to be gone. In anticipation of those occasions, consider establishing a relationship with substitute child care providers who could provide backup care for you and/or provide parents with a list of substitute child care providers that could be used.

When you know in advance that you will use a substitute, ask the substitute to possibly visit your facility so that you can introduce him or her to the children as well as to the parents. This will help the children adjust to the substitute and allow you to show the substitute around your facility and explain your policies and routine.

Consult your state and local child care regulations regarding substitute child care providers. Also, contact your liability insurance carrier to determine whether a substitute provider is covered under your policy. If applicable, you should clarify with both your insurance carrier and the substitute provider that you will not be held responsible for any acts of negligence by the substitute.

Every child care provider must keep various supplies on hand. The Day Care Contract allows providers to specify which supplies the child care facility will provide and which supplies the parent must supply. For example, child care providers must have personal hygiene items in stock in order to keep the children clean. You, as a child care provider, must determine whether you will be responsible for purchasing and replenishing these personal hygiene items or whether you want the parents to furnish these items.

Examples of items usually supplied by the parent include:

Diapers

Wipes

Formula

Special diet foods*

Change of clothing appropriate for the weather

Blanket

Medications

*If a child has special dietary needs, the child care provider and the parent must decide who will provide and prepare the special foods.

Examples of items usually supplied by the child care provider include:

Meals and snacks

Personal hygiene items such as wash cloths, soap, powder, ointment, etc.

Toys, books, games, etc.

Consider imposing a trial period during which both you and the parent have an opportunity to decide if continuing the child care relationship is appropriate. This trial period will allow you to determine whether the child is able to get along with the other children at your facility and whether you are compatible with the child and the parent. During this trial period, consider contacting the child's former caregivers. However, before you do this, you must first inform the parents of this policy. During the trial period, it is typical to allow both the provider and the parent to terminate child care services without advance notice.

Next, determine the procedures by which a party can terminate child care services after the trial period has passed. For example, you should specify how much advance written notice will be required before either party can terminate the relationship. If a parent tries to end the child care relationship without giving you enough time to fill the vacant spot, your revenues and profits will suffer. To reduce this loss, you may want to specify that the parent must pay for the shortage period. The Day Care Contract provides for this option. However, you should note that including this provision does not always guarantee that you will be able to collect from the parent.

You should retain the right to terminate the child care relationship without notice upon certain conditions. For example, if a child exhibits destructive, uncontrollable, or violent behavior, then, for the safety of yourself and the other children, you may need to immediately terminate the child care relationship. Further, if the child care fees are delinquent, you may want the ability to end the relationship.