Clients on rotating schedules

[Rachael]

My contracts are based on a fee for the days reserved for a child not their attendance. If someone has a rotating shift, they need every day reserved for their child and so need to pay for all 5 days. I can't fill these ever changing vacant days based on their work schedule which means, taking them as a client under the terms they hope for, results in me taking the entire financial loss of their work situation! Nope - can't do that. They have to pay for the full place if they want the availability of the full place.

No different IMO than those who take an extended vacation and have to pay for their place and no different than those who work for the school board and have to pay to keep their child's place during the summer.

I cannot and will not reserve a Monday - Friday 100% place and only receive 50% income from it. I fully understand that some parents don't want to pay for a full time place and also that some can't - and they are more than welcome to find a carer who better suits their needs :-)

I also don't take those who extend their days to 12 hour shifts in order to get every second Friday off. I fully understand that it's great they have that flexibility with their employer but since most would need a 14 hour day from me in order to travel to/from work, that's not something I feel obligated to figure out for them either.


Admittedly it's a bit of a side issue - but my personal pet peeve is when parents with these needs, place an ad for a "flexible day care provider".

This is my personal red flag that their view of flexible won't match mine - i.e. they don't want to pay for days reserved but rather days attended.

All well and good until 6 sets of retired grandparents roll into town for Christmas and suddenly, the day care is empty for a couple of weeks as grandparents provide free care and frees up those day care fees for extra gifts. Pretty crappy for the carer when she's got no gifts under her tree.