How Does One Start a Family Child Care?

A while back, I received an email from someone who attended one of my recent trainings. It seemed like a simple enough question. Basically, how does one start a family child care?

Seemed simple enough, until I began responding. One very long email later, I realized that perhaps it might be good information to share! This blog, after all, was intended to follow my journey in starting a family child care home, and some of the things I discover along the way.  So, with that, here was my response (and keep in mind, I'm writing from Fresno, CA, so this may be different for other counties/states):

Hi Anonymous,

I'd be glad to share my experience with starting a family child care home.  It's not a short answer, so I hope you have a few minutes to spare.  [Ok, so maybe more than just a few minutes...]

1. Before you get started with opening your own family child care home, here are some things to consider:  http://ccld.ca.gov/Res/pdf/WAIT.pdf
   
2. Next, get general info about starting a family child care by visiting their website here: http://ccld.ca.gov/PG513.htm
   
3. Be sure to find out where your local community care licensing branch is. To find out the phone number and address of your local community care licensing office, go to this link: http://ccld.ca.gov/res/pdf/CClistingMaster.pdf
   
4. Once you've decided that starting a family child care is for you, you'll start off by attending an orientation. You can now take it in-person or online. I recommend taking it in-person in possible - it's nice to be able to interact with a real person and be able to raise your hand and ask questions. I used to work at my local Resource & Referral agency, so I had had multiple opportunities to sit through this orientation before, so I chose to take it online. I had some minor complications logging on, but once it worked, it was very convenient to take it at my own pace in the comfort of my own home and be able to replay parts I didn't totally understand the first time. Here's the link to register/get information: http://ccld.ca.gov/PG534.htm
   
5. Be up to date for your Infant/Pediatric CPR/First Aid and Health & Safety courses. These are required to submit your application, although you may choose to register for them and submit proof of registration with your application just to get things going.
   
   
6. Submit your application as soon as possible! This is what will really get the ball rolling. Your community care licensing office will know you exist and get you what you need to do the next steps, such as getting fingerprinted/background check. If you need help filling this out, you might try the next step.
   
   
7. Find some support. This step might actually work as a first step, too. I recommend contacting any agencies in your area working with early education programs. Resource & Referral (R&R) agencies tend to have various programs to support providers becoming licensed. Often times, local First 5 offices may be able to connect you to resources in your area, as would some county offices of education. You can find your local R&R office by visiting their site: http://www.rrnetwork.org/
   
8. Become familiar with licensing regulations and make sure that you're able to comply with them: http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/getinfo/pdf/fcc.PDF
   
9. Prepare your space. This is where that support will really come in handy if it's available. It helps to have someone to bounce ideas off of to plan a thoughtful layout and to help ensure that your space is safe for children and meeting regulations.
   
   
10. Along with this, you can also look for resources. There are many great books for family child care home providers to give ideas on how to arrange the room for children in a home setting. You can buy these less expensively online (especially when used), or perhaps borrow them for free at your local library. Here are some of my favorites:
• Family Child Care Environmental Rating Scale (By Thelma Harms, Debby Cryer, and Richard M. Clifford) - This may not be an easy read, but it is a great growth and quality improvement tool you can use to set (manageable) goals for your space
  
• Family Child Care Homes: Creative Spaces for Children to Learn (by Linda J. Armstrong) - great ideas that can work in various types of homes. Offers some inspiration.
  
• Designs for Living and Learning: Transforming Early Childhood Environments (by Deb Curtis and Margie Carter) - this book may not be specific to family child care home environments, but offers some ideas that could work in both homes and centers.
  
11. Besides books, you can also check out blogs online. This has been my greatest source of inspiration for both environment and curriculum (which often, I've found, go hand in hand). I have an inclination towards earthy, natural learning environments, which is why I've looked into the Waldorf philosophy, and I believe in encouraging exploration and projects, so I look for blogs related to the Reggio Emilia philosophies. The following are some of my favorite sites. They don't have to be geared towards family child care home providers - many of them are parenting blogs, but the same principals apply.
    
    
• Soule Mama: http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/
• Daily Pea: http://www.dailypea.com/
• Miss Reggio Blog: http://missreggio.blogspot.com/
• Let The Children Play: http://www.letthechildrenplay.net/
• The Magic Onions: http://www.themagiconions.com/
• Bending Birches: http://bendingbirches2010.blogspot.com/
• An Everyday Story: http://www.aneverydaystory.com/
• You're welcome to also follow my blog, "Garland of Grace," as well! http://adri-333.wix.com/garlandofgrace
  
12. After you submit your application for licensing, as well as other required documentation, you'll get your visit from licensing. It helps to have a mock visit, if there is a support agency in your area that would offer one.
    
13. Once you are licensed, you're still not done! Make sure you are well aware of  ratios you are allowed to have depending on whether you have been licensed for a small or large family child care home. Licensing will give you forms and resources to include in your enrollment packet for parents, which leads me to the next step (if you haven't already done this by now):
    
14. Put together your parent applications, policies, and enrollment packets. This is by far the most tedious piece of the process that I went through (at least for me!). What really helped is that my local R&R agency provided templates that I could use and customize for my program (How cool is that?).  Here's the resource they let me borrow:
    
    
• The Redleaf Complete Forms Kit for Early Childhood Professionals (from the Redleaf Business Series)
  
  http://www.redleafpress.org/Redleaf-Complete-Forms-Kit-for-Early-Childhood-Professionals-P191.aspx
  
15. Finally, advertise! There are many ways to do this. It helps to be listed with your local R&R agency. They may have ideas and suggestions on how to price and market your services. I advertised through Craigslist, as well as various mommy groups (that allowed marketing) on Facebook. You can also try to flyer your community or in neighborhoods by nearby elementary schools. Word of mouth is one of the best!
    
16. Take baby steps. This is my biggest piece of advice (and one that I often remind myself of). This process of becoming licensed has been a fast one, but also a big learning experience for me. I'm looking at early education from a totally different angle, and having my two young daughters in the programs adds new challenges, and joys, to the mix. The biggest thing is that it must be something you're excited to take on, and do what you can to keep that excitement! Don't overwhelm yourself with trying to tackle everything at once - that's what I tend to do. I've committed myself to just learning one new thing a week. After all, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. Start a pace that you can maintain and not get burnt out at the start. Know what you're able to handle, and stick to that. Be sure to include things in every day that bring you joy. If you're the journaling type, keep a journal to mark your accomplishments and milestones. Every little step counts, so celebrate them!
    

I am certainly no expert (I have been licensed for a whole half a month now [at the time of writing this]), so I'm sure there are additional steps that might be added here, or perhaps you may find that following this in a different order works best for you. Hopefully, however, you will find this somewhat helpful in your endeavors. I wish you the very best of luck, and hope you find much support around you to make it a reality. Please let me know how it goes, and if I could be of any assistance or encouragement to you in the process!

Blessings,

Adriana Gomez

Garland of Grace Early Learning Program

Edible Paint - First Attempt

I love Pinterest. There are sooo many different ideas and fun recipes on there - for just about anything, really. It's been a little over a month now since I began my family child care, and I just had a baby join my program, so off I went to Pinterest to see what fun, baby-safe art recipes I could find. A lot of them (well most of them) tend to be a food, plus a coloring substance (like food coloring, or Kool-Aid). Not all of them seemed like they can be used with a brush, and I thought I'd see if baby (close to a year old), might be interested in using a brush, since that's what the older children in my program would be using.

So here's what I used:

Over the years, I've collected baby food jars. I keep telling my husband that I would use them, so (a few years down the road), I'm proud of myself for pulling these bad boys out. They were washed and sanitized before use.

These were my two ingredients. Condensed milk will paint well on paper (particularly on fingerpainting paper, which is a bit smoother), along with food coloring.

I filled up three baby food jars with the condensed milk. You could always just start with one, but I wanted to give baby the opportunity to see different colors. I put one or two drops of coloring in each jar and stirred.

Baby was in her high chair and I tried putting paper in front of her, but she wanted nothing to do with it, but the brush she loooved! 

After a while, she tried touching the paint, and then some cause and effect learning with the paint brush.

By this point, it had gotten a bit stickier than I had anticipated, so you couldn't really slide it around anymore. I wonder if additional milk or other substance might have helped. Ultimately, I think it would've been great as an edible paint to be used on paper rather than with fingers. Either way, we still enjoyed the learning process and will continue to try some different recipes and share our results.

If you have any recipe requests or recipes to share, be sure to message me at our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/garlandofgrace), or by visiting the Contact Us page at our website at http://adri-333.wix.com/garlandofgrace.

Hope you enjoyed this article!

Thoughtful Transitions

Transitions are all around us, aren't they? Transitioning to a new school, new job, new baby, new car (even if it's used, hey, it's new to us!)... We are always in transition. So, if you're in transition, I can relate! I still remember the rush of things I had to get used to as a new mom a few years ago. I went from having a full time job, a career of my own, to facing budget cuts and lay offs (me!), and awaiting the biggest transition of mine and my husbands' lives at the time, having our baby. Later, I transitioned to going back to school, having a second baby, and getting back into a full-time job... all at the same time! (And don't ask me how many times we moved. Honestly, I think I lost track.) Should I say, chaos? Well, it was a happy chaos that I could live with.

Years later, I now find myself transitioning again, feeling like I'm going back to that square one - my husband and I found ourselves making the choice for me to stay at home and start a family child care and to be able to stay at home with our girls (now 2 and 4). I find myself working to create a routine that works for my family and for the children I'll be caring for. This is challenge #1 for me. I'm routine resistant - I create routine, and then I break it. It's one of those "rules are meant to be broken" for me. However, it's not just about me, and I know that my girls need that predictability in their lives, and so, routine it is! And it's benefiting me, too. I can't remember the last time I consistently had 3 meals (and 2 snacks!) a day - not to mention healthy food and not take out!

My challenge #2 is my environment. I'm used to my environment being ever changing, and this is certainly no different. I was so proud when I set up my environment for my child care - I felt it looked so beautifully staged and inspiring - until I opened the door and my two little beta testers scampered in and immediately began revealing to me the flaws in parts of my design. Bubble officially bursted.  I do realize, though, that a good environment is so crucial to avoiding challenging behavior - whether it be for my girls, or even me (a comfortable, adult-size chair will need to be my first investment for the playroom... one week of sitting in 2 ft. high Dora the Explorer chairs has not done my back much good).

Finally, my challenge #3 is making it fun. Did I mention earlier how I was back at school, working full time, caring for my kids (and occasionally my husband), and trying to make time to volunteer at church (I'm getting dizzy already as I type this out just thinking about it)? I have to admit. I fell into some bad habits. I often felt very rushed, and in my "feeling-rushed-edness," I rushed others. Bedtime routines very much became chores. Dinnertime was a chore. Cleaning was a chore. Even hellos and goodbyes even felt like chores. Some rougher days, anything keeping me from getting some sleep was a chore. I unwittingly sucked the joy out of what could be precious, enjoyable time together. So I'm retracing my steps backwards and seeking that joy I once had. I'm singing songs at handwashing time again. We parachute the blankets when making the bed. My family even tended the lawn together - more like the kids got muddier and muddier as mom and dad weeded and mowed - but I cannot describe how "together" we felt, how accomplished we felt, and what that did to my spirit. The photos featured were from that morning together - we were dusty, sweaty, and happy together. I'm certainly not where I want to be yet, but I feel I'm getting closer.

So what experiences have you had with transitions? Whether it be in your homes, classrooms, work? I hope that you, above all, can keep the joy in it and find a way to instill fun into your lives.

Blessings,

Adriana

P.S. This weekend, I'm doing a training on transitions for fellow early ed teachers in California. I'm excited to share some great resources I found. Something you will learn from me is that I'm a resource hoarder. At least I keep it digital (for the most part). Evernote and Gmail makes it possible for me to never throw anything away again.... Anywho, I thought I'd share below some links to various things I bumped into online. 

Resources for transitions:

Article on Transitions from Great Start Connect in Michigan

"Planning Transitions to Prevent Challenging Behavior" - an article by NAEYC

"Helping Children Understand Routines and Classroom Schedules" by CSEFEL

"Helping Children Make Transitions Between Activities" by CSEFEL

"Routines & Schedules: How to Help Your Child Transition Smoothly Between Places and Activities" by CSEFEL

"Scripted Stories Tip Sheet" by CSEFEL

"Social Emotional Scripted Story Guide" by the Tenessee Teaching Pyramid Team

Genesis - Building a Family Child Care

 

Welcome to my very first blog for Garland of Grace! It’s been an intense journey to get everything prepared in starting my very first family child care program - it’s not as simple as submitting an application to get licensed, installing a few child resistant locks, and then opening the doors. Coming from a job position where all we did was coach early childhood programs through the quality improvement process (with the goal largely being to reach national accreditation through NAEYC or NAFCC), I find myself checking what my goals will be, what will be in my environment, what my first investments will be in to improve the program, policies, etc… It’s a process - a challenging and rewarding process.

I grew up in a family child care home myself - my mother ran one for many years in the Bay Area, and when I was old enough, I became her assistant. I didn’t know then that my husband and I would take that leap of faith, and that I would find myself starting one as well - one that our own girls (ages 2 & 4) would get to participate in.

I have many lofty goals, but the main part is that I want children to learn to love to learn… did that make sense? Kids ought to love learning. In the first 5 years of life, learning is intrinsic, it’s what drives development - they are MOTIVATED to learn! Yet, more and more, kids are starting off in kindergarten unprepared, and sometimes, this means that children face so many challenges their first year of school that school becomes “hard” and they “aren’t good at it.” This should not be what children are feeling when they start school - they should feel capable, accomplished, talented. Much of this comes from the experiences they have in these early years. So goal number one is offering hands-on, fun learning experiences that are appropriate for each child - appropriate for their age and stage of development.

Every child deserves to have quality experiences early in life that will prepare them for being thriving, caring adults. My hope is that this program offers nothing less than that.