I restarted my daycare January 2012...a year ago. Prior to that I was working outside the home. I have two of my grandkids who are in the foster care system and at the time I was working, my granddaughter who was 7 was going to daycare.
She was receiving therapy each week and we were having a hard time working out a schedule for it during the day due to my work schedule.
The caseworker wanted to have the therapist go to my granddaughters in home daycare and do therapy there. I said absolutely not as this was still someone's personal home and business and there were other children and families to consider.
This caseworker went on to tell me she didn't see anything wrong with it. I stood my ground and refused to allow it, but I was just wondering if you were presented with a situation where an outsider wanted to come into your daycare home to spend an hour a week providing therapy for a child (or any other similar situation), how would you feel about it? This is mental health therapy...not something like physical therapy, occupational therapy or anything like that.
Opinions please???

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Yes... I have 2 kids receiving therapy from Early Intervention in my daycare... I have a seperate room with child size table and 2 chairs just for that purpose. I also have a form each therapist have to sign for every visit they do in my daycare. Each child have a different therapist and different schedule of therapy.

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Doing foster care for a number of years I know for most foster parents it's quite common to have the child's worker, CASA, GAL, therapist and whoever else visit them in their daycare. Not only is it convenient but it gives them all a better picture of what the child's day is like and if they're doing ok with the arrangement. It's really incredibly common. If there weren't ways to work around all of those appointments I highly doubt most people could manage to have a job and foster at the same time.

On the flip side as a provider I wouldn't mind it one bit. As long as the mental health issues the child is being provided therapy for wouldn't impact my group, or the child's overall demeanor after the session was done, I wouldn't mind helping out in that regard at all. It would be helpful if I had some say in when the therapist came though so I could avoid nap time and have something else ready for all the other kids to engage in.

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I have allowed therapists to work here at my home but I have a few boundaries

I give windows of time available for appointments and they choose from those times

I can stop the situation at any time if it becomes disruptive

I do not allow a therapist and child alone so whatever they are doing, has to be done out in the open and with the understanding that my other kids here might get curious or nosey

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I've had several different children have their therapies done at my home while they are here for daycare. I am also a foster parent and most of my foster children have needed therapy of some sort and it was usually done during my daycare hours at my home. I actually really enjoyed that they came to the home during daycare hours so that I didn't have to find time to schedule that after my work hours. I didn't have to worry about transporting the kids anywhere, etc.

I actually thought it was great for the other children in my care who were not recieving therapy. They got to get exposed to other ways of doing things.

I thought it helped my daycare business, because I wasn't afraid to have those outside professional come in. It built greater relationships with parents who had children who needed therapy. I learned alot from observing the therapy...

Depending on the therapy needed, some has been done right in our play area while everyone was playing. Other times I had the therapist take the child into a separate room to have more one on one time.

I think having therapy at your daycare is a great way to build relationships with other professionals.

If there are times in your day that won't work so well to accomadate therapy, just be sure to communicate it with the therapist. (nap time, meal time, etc)

It's always been a postive experience for me.

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I would think it would be fine IF....you hand specific windows of time in which she would come for the sessions and there was a private room in which to hold the sessions.

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