Motivation for running privately?

[Teagles]

I am doing an assignment for my Diploma in ECE and I am just curious of why childcare providers chose to run privately?

I do not mean to criticize anyone for their chose nor will I pass judgement I am merely trying to gain insight and understand the choice.

Any experiences you can share with me would be much appreciated.

[cfred]

What class is this for? Just out of curiosity. What is the focus or direction of your assignment? Sorry for the questions, but my first thought, under the circumstances, was that you're media. I'm feeling a tad apprehensive about talking to anyone about private daycare, after the CBC attack and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this.

[playfelt]

You don't mention what province you are in so that will determine the answers you need since each province has different rules and therefore people make different choices accordingly.

I am from Ontario so that is what I know. Plain and simple it is the amount of income you can earn and the freedom to do it the way you want to. This is especially important if you are staying home with your own children because you have an idea of the kind of day/program/learning that you want them to have. Also privately your own children do not count in your daycare numbers so you can have a full slate of 5 daycare children plus your own. Through an agency your own children take up spaces and because the agency has age restrictions you end up with kids all over the spectrum including school age to get to 5 kids. Privately you can have any age mix so it is ok to have all of the children around the same age as your own children so that you are only presenting one level of program and meeting the needs of one age group. The agency scrapes money off the top of what is paid so privately you can make more per child. Unannounced superviser visits are disruptive - no one wants the doorbell to ring during morning baby naptime while you are tying to do a craft with the older kids and can't leave the table because they are fingerpainting. In some cases they just want to make sure the temperature in your refrigerator is up to par and if the fire extinguisher that is checked yearly is still up to date even though they looked at it the month before and know full well what month the year will be up in - translation not helpful and very disruptive. What agencies say they provide is available to providers either from childcare associations, through support groups such as this, activities and theme ideas abound on the internet and in most cases providers end up finding many of their own clients anyways since the agencies often do not have enough children to place in the home.

[sunnydays]

Exactly what Playfelt said. I am confident and proud of my daycare and have no problem getting clients without an agency stepping into the middle. I do not want an agency taking a portion of my hard earned money and telling me how much I am worth (ie. how much I can charge) or what my policies should be. I also would not be able to run my daycare with agency rations of 2 under the age of two and three under 3 with my own kids counting in the five kids allowed. Kids start school full-time at 4, so all we have are 3 and under kids. To be able to offer a quality program, I need to be able to make it financially feasable. We work extremely hard, long hours, little societal respect and we should be able to at least make a decent living doing this important job. A large part of anybody's job satisfaction comes from feeling we are fairly paid for what we do. Why should daycare providers be any different?

[Teagles]

Ya I understand the timing is fishy, it is just that the program influenced my project. The class is Organization and Administration and the project is Advocacy and I am advocating for regulated childcare. I just want to hear and better understand the other side. I am not against private day home I am for quality, high standards of care for young children. I feel like the program was leaving out a lot of information. I know some private day homes and in no way are they trying to provide mediocre care. I really just want to know and share the whole story.

PS- I am from Alberta but insight from any province would help.

[giraffe]

I am all for regulation of childcare. I am even all for licencing of private dayhomes, but what I am NOT in favor of is being an agency daycare. If you look at a lot of the "recommendations" given most of them suggest that every private provider should become licensed and then governed by an agency therefor making the agency more money. (They usually take about 35% of the daily fee). And the kicker is... most of these recommendations have been written by agencies.

I myself run a private in home childcare. I do this because I want to work for myself and not have to pay anyone (the agency) for things that I can do myself. I write my own lesson plans, I provide new good quality equipment, I provide great high quality food, I provide all of my own craft materials, I find my own clients, I write my own policies and I set my own hours. i dont [U]need[U] an agency... so why pay them?

BTW In Ontario... even when you are with a licensed agency the dayhome itself is NOT licensed, only the agency is licensed.

[Momof4]

My answer is quite simple. I enjoy being self-employed, making my own contract and rules and policies, with safety, cleanliness, nutrition and great activities all at the top of my list. I don't want to work for someone else or have anyone inspecting my home. I have absolutely nothing to hide but I hate the idea of having someone else controlling my business. If I had anything to hide I would expect the parents to see it and not leave their child with me! I work WITH the parents as a team and I tell the truth about everything at the interview and contract signing phase. Why would I want a third party in the mix anywhere?

I truly don't understand how children are left in substandard daycares but we hear the horror stories all the time, whether they are licenced or not. I remember someone telling the story on another forum of the licenced daycare next door to her and the entire back yard was filled with dog poop and she could never figure out how the licencing agency found that acceptable.

[playfelt]

I think a big issue for home daycare is just that. This is first and foremost my home and a daycare second. That needs to be respected by any agency and it is not based on some very silly rules. For someone with a basement daycare complete with kitchen where children arrive on main floor but spend day in basement and even nap there never ever going up to the bedroom level since it is gated off why should it matter if I have mouthwash without a child safety cap on my bathroom counter or a razor in an unlocked medicine chest on the wall which is too high for a child to reach anyways. This is my home and I have a right to enjoy it in comfort too.

Arbitrary rules was one of the issues I had with the agency when I was with them. I had a double stroller till one of the two under two reached 18 months and was then expected to walk so the stroller could be passed on to someone else. The fact the child had only begun to take steps at 16 months and was not adept at walking did not factor into the equation. Same thing with use of a playpen for sleeping or a highchair for eating. I use common sense in my home daycare. Something that was sorely lacking with the "rules" the agency was under obligation to enforce. I leave small children in high chairs till they are tall enough to sit comfortably at the table regardless of how old they are. They sleep in a playpen till they move from a crib to a bed at home or they reach 30 pounds - age has nothing to do with it and developmental level is what it is all about. Agency rules forget that all children are different and on their own learning path. A good private home daycare can support that because we are not bound by silly rules of agencies or part of the herd mentality of a large daycare centre.

[cfred]

Ya I understand the timing is fishy, it is just that the program influenced my project. The class is Organization and Administration and the project is Advocacy and I am advocating for regulated childcare. I just want to hear and better understand the other side. I am not against private day home I am for quality, high standards of care for young children. I feel like the program was leaving out a lot of information. I know some private day homes and in no way are they trying to provide mediocre care. I really just want to know and share the whole story.

PS- I am from Alberta but insight from any province would help.

Hi Teagles! Sorry for the skepticism. Great topic for an assignment, by the way!

My reasons are pretty much the same as others noted by other providers. I found, working in daycare centres, that the staff were often unhappy. It's a stressful job, in a daycare setting, with poor pay and high expectations and not a tremendous amount of support. I found the women I worked with, though I have the utmost respect for all of them, were (on occasion) catty. I can hardly blame them. We always had students coming in for placement, but often were not placed in the appropriate way. When I was head teacher in the Junior Preschool Room, I had a student working under me, though I've no idea why. I had 2 assistants. She was direly needed in the Senior Room, and the result was a great deal of resentment toward me from the head teacher in that room. I didn't like how children were shuffled around to balance ratios (without parental knowledge). I felt the schedule was too inflexible for little ones. I'm a firm believer that a more casual approach is better for children. If we want to scrap the day's planned activities in favour of baking cookies, then that's what we do. It's lovely :)

My biggest factor (aside from the above mentioned) was a little more personal. I grew up with my Mom being home all the time. I never had to stay in a sick room, go outside to play for the required 2 hours if I wasn't feeling up to par and I always, always had 'my mummy' whenever I wanted. In one of my placements, there was a 3 yr old girl who spiked a fever of 102 during nap. Staff couldn't reach her parents so she was bundled up and forced to go outside feeling like a big bag of poo. At my daycare, if someone's feeling crummy, they get to cuddle up with a furry blanket and be cozy. I realize that kids need to go to daycare as parents need to earn a living. I wanted to offer children the next best thing; a place where they can have 'a mummy' substitute and a place that feels at least almost, like home. I want the kiddies to have a little taste of what I had. I'm not mum by any stretch, but I want to give them the closest to it that I can.

And for the record, I'm also in favour of regulation, but not as it stands now. The home daycare industry needs to have individual licensing rights and regulations that are more realistic and reasonable for our different style of care. I believe it's unreasonable for a home daycare to be held to the same restrictions as a large institution. We simply can't do some of the things they do such as install child sized toilets, age restrictions, etc. There needs to be a little more common sense applied.

[Teagles]

And for the record, I'm also in favour of regulation, but not as it stands now. The home daycare industry needs to have individual licensing rights and regulations that are more realistic and reasonable for our different style of care. I believe it's unreasonable for a home daycare to be held to the same restrictions as a large institution. We simply can't do some of the things they do such as install child sized toilets, age restrictions, etc. There needs to be a little more common sense applied.

Thank-you for the input and I fully agree. I ran a Day home with an agency and those were my very frustrations. Luckily I was able to find a agency that was more "hands-off" but still supportive. In Alberta if you are not approved then families can not access subsidy and providers miss out on wage top-ups.

Now I am curious how you choose regulations? Do you modify ones provided by agencies or the government? And a more personal question, what credentials do you think providers should have (criminal record checks, first aid, post- secondary training, ect)?

[playfelt]

Even the ECE programs do not recognize home care correctly. The biggest issue is that best practice and reality do not mess well for home care. That doesn't mean home care is wrong it just means maybe we need to look at what is really best practice and does it mean the child will be damaged for life if the program they are in does not have certain things.

In home care the biggest issue is that we deal with multiple ages in the same room - that means sometimes a baby does need to spend time in a playpen or play yard or exersaucer while the older ones have dance time or that older ones do not have unlimited access to craft supplies and must either ask for them or wait till the babies are having morning naps. Open water tables are best practice for older kids but a safety hazard to infants and toddlers - to meet the regulation waterplay can be the kids taking a bath at bedtime. Again not everything a child is supposed to learn or do in life has to take place during daycare hours. Parents have to have a partnership too.

Mostly our contracts deal with what we expect from parents in terms of when they are dropping off, picking up, what they are to provide such as diapers and bottles, how much we are to be paid, how vacations and stat holidays will be dealt with, etc. As far as regulations to follow within the daycare that is pretty much up to the caregiver to make a routine that works for their group. Common sense takes over and in most cases caregivers are also parents so they are providing what they would want for their own children too in terms of activities, cleanliness, routines, equipment.

A criminal reference check only goes back a few years so for a new caregiver maybe important but if a caregiver can give names and references back over 10 years that says more than any police check will ever say. Common sense says if there had been a conviction there would be a major gap in the 10 years of care and the caregiver's own children would likely have been removed from the home.

Rather than required post-secondary training it is more important that there be local opportunities for caregivers to take workshops, learn from more seasoned caregivers and get local support so they don't feel isolated. Many woman who have not even finished high school are very good at caring for children. They just need a bit of help to add programming to their day.

I lived in Calgary from 1985 - 1990. I worked for an agency called Jan-Pat Satelitte Family Dayhomes. It was started by a woman named Janet who used to be responsible for going around and supervising the other home daycare agenices in Calgary. In frustration she left that job and started her own dayhome agency doing things that answered all the things she felt were wrong. It was wonderful working for her. At the time there were not very rigid standards in Alberta for daycare either. When we moved to Ottawa I started working for an agency here just assuming it would be the same and I actually lasted 4 months before I just couldn't do it anymore.