Wanting to start Family day care

[Girl-23]

Hi everyone,

I am interested in working from home. I wanted to do family daycare from home. I am located in Perth. Can anyone please direct me on where to start. I also am interested in hearing about other people's experiences.

Regards,

[Persephone1]

Hi,

My sister ran a FDC in the NT. You should probably start by contacting your local council, they often regulate FDCs or can refer you to the agency who does.

I think FDC is fairly easy to establish, with very few regulations other than needing you to have a safe home and first aid qualifications. It will depend on your State and local council.

Good luck!

[mrsmac]

I know the rules in NSW are getting tougher and tougher regarding FDC. My DS's carer is getting so frustrated with some of the pointless bureaucracy.
Try an organisation like Centacare for advice or google FDC.
Good luck- I am a huge fan of FDC.

[Amaunet]

It's worth looking into further, there are a lot of regulations now in terms of preparing your home and in NSW carers will have to have a TAFE qual soon.um not sure if this will be a national requirement. My son is in FDC and my Carer mentioned the ratios are changing too - from 5 to 4 children.

[Peg]

I looked into this when I was having my 3rd child...thought it would be good to be able to work from home.

You need to speak to your local council, they manage the FDC program and can give you all the info you need and get the ball rolling for you.

You will be required to take out public liability insurance (paid for by yourself)

Your house will need to be made childproof. This involves having all cleaning chemicals in a locked cupboard, or up high. All electrical plugs need to have those plastic protection covers. There needs to be a locked gate where there children will be playing in an outside area, Fenced all around with no way out. There needs to be shade cover in the outside area too.
The council will come an inspect and if you need any modifications they will tell you exactly what you need to do.

You will need to have a spare room set up with some matresses (on the floor is ok) for sleeping area. The sleeping area cannot be existing bedrooms.

You will need a vehicle (& licence) with enough child seats for each of the children in your care. The max number of kids you can have is 4, so you'll need 4 child seats if you have 4 kids.

You and any other adult who lives in the house will need to have a current police check and a 'working with children' check.

You also need to have a variety of toys and learning tools available. My FDC lady uses the local toy library.

Thats about it. FDC doesnt pay much. So dont expect to make a good living out of it, but if you have 4 kids a day you'll be earning around $20 per hour. (give or take a couple of dollars)

You 'may' also be required to undertake some formal training thru FDC before you start...but they'll tell you if you need to.

[Mum2SweetCs]

Hi There,

I looked into this last year too and I believe Mission Australia can help you get started. They gave me an information pack when they had a stall at a festival once.

I checked their website and couldnt find any information about it anymore =( but im sure it was them.

Goodluck

[KitFaerie]

I did this for 6 months before circumstances changed and I had to let it go. There's a lot of regulations, and STACKS of paperwork. The best part was the kids, the worst part was feeling like your house was never yours (I had to put up posters about handwashing/sleeping/fire escape stuff everywhere) the house looked like a workplace, which i guess was the point. It was brilliant making cookies on a monday afternoon with excited kids and thinking ''I'm at work!"

[Izabella]

I say go for it if you really want to do it !! Are you a childcare worker? Are you qualified ??

If you look up DoCs and the council you can download a lot of info. But like some of the other girls have mentioned, there are so many regulations, you will need to change ALOT in your house. For example, even glass in your doors, it has to be a certain type.

And you got to think about things like, ages and ratio's and what will happen if your ever sick and cant get out of bed, when you work for yourself. Its not like a childcare center where they can call in casuals or have other staff members look after the children you know what I mean,

You still have to do observations on the children and programs as well now, and accreditation would be awfully hard doing it by yourself.

Sorry, I sound really negative about it, but I'm not.

[Girl-23]

Thanks for the information ladies. I have decided I no longer wanted to do it. It's a 3-4 month set up process. Might as well apply for other jobs during that time. Hopefully something will come up for me. Thought I could do it until I got a HR Graduate position some where.