“If we are not working on getting better then we are kinda stagnant and not growing … it is better to get in on front end of a program than the tail end so when a new program comes through we try to jump right on that and get our staff excited about it to be leaders.”
“We already knew we were operating at this higher level, why not have the validation from something like Paths to QUALITY, so that it was more than just us saying we are a strong program but having Paths to QUALITY backing us up as well.”
“I live in a low income area and I have had so many times since I started that I have had interviews set up with parents and I get no reason why they don’t show up. I wonder if some of them just figured out where I’m at and they won’t come. I’ve had someone say that on the phone one time – I know where that’s at. They don’t like the area…I thought it would give me some credibility.”
“I think we would like to get some recognition and also about what we do and maybe in return parents will be calling us and saying “oh, you are this level, we appreciate what you are doing so that is why I want my child to come to you.”
“For me, I joined PTQ because parents are looking at all types of daycares and if you want to stand out, you have to do something to stand out. Participating in whatever you can,
accreditation, whatever. It gives the parents a little something more to look at than just someone watching their kids. That this is what they do, this is their profession, they want to stand out with everything and with PTQ that helps us better our programs and our children so that it is beneficial to us and our programs.”
“…I like that you do get the benefits of moving up, leveling up and you do get that bonus where you get to go through the catalog because we run on peanuts trying to dish out for nutritional foods and things. We don’t have a lot of money to spend on the kids and that little incentive is good too. So it’s nice.”
One of your biggest expenses as a high quality family child care home will be purchasing materials. One way to address this issue is setting up a plan to rotate and share some of the more expensive or larger sized materials with another provider. Let’s say you would like to purchase some big ticket materials, but want to share the cost with another provider who lives near you. You could split the cost and make a plan to share or rotate the materials between your programs. Rotating materials is a recommended best practice anyway, but this way you don’t have to find a place to store all those rotated materials. So less money out of pocket and no storage issues. It’s a win-win!
Some thoughts about sharing materials
-make sure you have a written agreement with the other provider, so there are no misunderstandings
-only purchase and share high quality materials–these materials will be receiving extra use so they should be materials that will hold up
-choose items that are easily transported as someone will have to transport the items and you don’t want this to be difficult
-to facilitate transportation and transfer consider purchasing a good quality storage container
-make sure you keep clear documentation of the split cost for your taxes
-make sure there is a clear agreement about who will keep the materials if a provider closes there program