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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Updating Policy/Contract
rmc20021 08:42 PM 03-21-2013
I sent letters home to all my dcp's Monday informing them there was going to be a new policy/contract revision and they will receive a copy of it on April 1st.

For the most part I had most of everything I wanted in my policy, but have been researching other areas I may have been lacking information on. I wanted to make it very clear to my clients EXACTLY what I expect and how I intend to follow through with everything.

Boy, has this been exhausting. It would be so much easier if my printer was working so I could actually print stuff off and do corrections on paper where I could see what I'm doing to copy it. For tonight though, I'm calling it a day.

I've got all my information typed out, just need to get it organized. Why must we have to have a rule for everything that could possibly come up when parents SHOULD be aware enough to know this stuff without it being spelled out to them??????

Thanks to this forum, I will now be charging my clients for their vacation time and more holidays which I was not charging before. I was losing almost 3 weeks of pay per year. And I'm making it very clear what my expectations are as far as late payment fees, late pickup fees.

I'm also changing my policy (for new clients) so that they are paying in advance instead of at the end of the week of care.

Again, thank you to everyone on here for keeping me in line.
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Kim 05:08 AM 03-22-2013
Good for you!

I renew my handbooks in August and I think I add something new every year. Just when I think I have everything I could possibly need in my handbook a situation occurs and I learn something new! I'm adding to my next revision that children may not attend the same day as receiving immunizations. I had one come late after a morning dr appt. and she had a mild reaction and was miserably uncomfortable. I had to call mom to pick up. All these years my parents have always made appts in the afternoon and just picked up early so if they are uncomfortable or have a reaction it's in the evening on mom or dad's watch.
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GoodKarma 06:15 AM 03-22-2013
Just know that no matter how clearly stated your policies are, you WILL HAVE parents that still question them periodically I have things in all caps and repeated more than once that still get questioned, mostly having to do with days I am closed and payment issues
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MarinaVanessa 07:21 AM 03-22-2013
That's great news for you, hang in there ... remember this part is the easy part, the hard part is getting clients to actually FOLLOW your policies DOn't forget to enforce them .
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Blackcat31 07:25 AM 03-22-2013
Originally Posted by rmc20021:
Why must we have to have a rule for everything that could possibly come up when parents SHOULD be aware enough to know this stuff without it being spelled out to them??????
Just wait until you start having to add MORE rules because of things that happen that you never thought you'd have to deal with.

I started out with some pretty straight forward business rules and added things each time a new situation occurred that I wanted to prevent for the next time.

Fast forward several years and I now have a pretty lengthy handbook of policies and sadly can remember each and every child/family that prompted me to make the new rule.
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rmc20021 07:37 AM 03-22-2013
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
Just wait until you start having to add MORE rules because of things that happen that you never thought you'd have to deal with.

I started out with some pretty straight forward business rules and added things each time a new situation occurred that I wanted to prevent for the next time.

Fast forward several years and I now have a pretty lengthy handbook of policies and sadly can remember each and every child/family that prompted me to make the new rule.
I completely agree. I did daycare some 20 years ago when my youngest children were toddlers and it seemed every time I turned around there were new issues I needed to add to my policy...one being for if a parent arrives to pick up a child under the influence of alcohol. The parent (dcd) for whom that particular policy was made for later commited suicide in his home due to his alcoholism.

So now that I started over again last year, it's been difficult to remember everything I had in my old policy and there are new things that have come up that I never had to deal with before so...add new policies to contract.

One of the things is that I will only be providing care for full/part time children only. NO Sa, NO drop ins...flat rate only. These parents are just soooooo unreliable these days with payments, drop offs and pick ups. I NEVER had those issues with any of my families 20 years ago.
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MarinaVanessa 07:43 AM 03-22-2013
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
Just wait until you start having to add MORE rules because of things that happen that you never thought you'd have to deal with.

I started out with some pretty straight forward business rules and added things each time a new situation occurred that I wanted to prevent for the next time.

Fast forward several years and I now have a pretty lengthy handbook of policies and sadly can remember each and every child/family that prompted me to make the new rule.
Each and every child/family that prompted you to change your policies?? You mean more than one?? Shees if i was so lucky, 80% of my policies are because of ONE client (my first one, no surprise there) and the other 20% are from reading posts here on the forum and thinking to myself "Man, I don't want that to happen to me"
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Blackcat31 07:50 AM 03-22-2013
Originally Posted by rmc20021:

One of the things is that I will only be providing care for full/part time children only. NO Sa, NO drop ins...flat rate only. These parents are just soooooo unreliable these days with payments, drop offs and pick ups. I NEVER had those issues with any of my families 20 years ago.
I have been in business for 20+ years and I too started out with families paying by the hour AFTER care was provided and ONLY for the time they used...even if they scheduled more.

I now charge full time ONLY and don't provide even one minute of care unless they PRE-PAY.

I have learned as I've aged that there are so many more things in life beside the money. Obviously money helps but I simply refuse to allow someone else's issues to impact my income.

I stopped feeling bad about every sob story I have heard (and I've heard some doozies). Well, I take that back.....I DO feel bad sometimes but I've stopped acting on those feelings and empathize ONLY.

Parenting has definitely changed over the last few decades and providers are finding themselves having issues that were unheard of before as well as having to fulfill roles that were solely a parental responsibility before which blurs the lines for us even more now.

I can't honestly say I would do this again if I were just now coming into this.

Good thing I am on the downward slide.
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Tags:contract - revisions, policy
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