How should I tell her?

[Inspired by Reggio]

I agree with both Cadillac and Judy .... this is your business and YOU get to choose changes you are making to it ~ you do not need to 'ask' clients if they are going to be ok with it unless you actually plan to follow or heed their advice cause that just pisses people off when they are asked advice or feedback and it is not 'followed' .... you just 'present them' with the new contact as per the notice period to change required and they choose to sign it or not!

I would just tell all the clients that moving forward this is how things are going to be, this is the plan put in place to deal with the changes for the program (aka new fire drill procedures, part time help or whatever you are planning to do), and if you've been charging the clients a higher fee based on a premium service you are no longer going to be providing than lower the 'fee' to reflect the 'normal fee' for the new business plan of being fuller.

Bottom line is if it is a real issue you could loose the one client no matter what you 'try to do' to sooth the news for her specially if the reason she picked you was the 'lower ratios' cause it might not just be the emergency issue she has concern with but that they just do not like 'change' beyond their control ... so unless you are actually not going to do it if this is the 'risk' how she handles it is basically mute .... if she leaves she leaves and you find someone new to replace her.

Honestly I also agree that I would rather just have 3 clients than have to hirer 'help' to take on the 4th and feel 'good' ..... because hiring help in your program opens a whole new door of issues .... you need to inform your insurance carrier you have an 'employee' now in addition to just 'clients' because your premium could be affected by this change depending on your carrier and if you fail to inform and something happens to the employee your policy could be 'voided' because you did not disclose the change and they consider that 'attempted fraud', there is also the issue of who pays EI, CPP and taxes on behalf of that employee and making sure you are CLEAR so it does not come back to bite you in an audit and so forth ... what happens when the employee is 'sick' and the clients are expecting and 'agreeing' to the change in higher ratio based on that person being there and they are not ~ if they are not comfortable leaving their child than do you rebate their fee to them or how is that handled and so forth .... just too much room for 'conflict' for the benefit on 1 child's fee .... it could end up costing you income to provide the service???