Group Child Care Center Policy Development

Policies are written statements about what you believe and describe in detail how you will operate your childcare business. They guide your day-to-day operations. It is critical that you take the time now to carefully research and think through many important issues, put them in writing and make a plan to implement them. Parent or staff handbooks are not policies. These handbooks summarize important information for parents and staff. Policies are much more in-depth documents.

The policies required include:

Admission, describes the procedure parents go through to enroll their children

Continuing Education, describes for staff the process of obtaining and documenting continuing education

Child Guidance, describes to staff and families your philosophy of guiding children’s behavior and the prohibited forms of punishment

Education, explains what the children will be doing all day in your program and why they are doing these particular activities

Fire/Tornado and other Emergency, describes procedures for all potential emergencies and staff responsibilities

Health Care Policy, defines procedures for ensuring a healthy and safe child care operation. These policies relate directly to regulations

Nutrition Policy, defines food service procedures

Orientation of Staff, explains who is responsible to orientate new staff, when this will happen and how it will be documented.

Discharge of Enrolled Children, tells parents what to do when they intend to withdraw their child, and explains why and how the center might terminate an enrollment

Fee Payment and Refund

Personnel Policy, including job descriptions, benefits, hiring/firing procedures

Mildly Ill Care, if program wishes to be licensed for this specialty

Things that will help you write your policies:

Policy development guidelines PFS-3074 (available from the Child Care Information Center, call 1-800-362-7353 or e-mail: ccic@dpi.state.wi.us) These guidelines indicate what items are required to be included in your policies and which items should be added as good business practice but not required in order to get a license.

Group Day Care Policy Checklist (form number cfs-2048, also available from the Child Care Information Center or from the forms section of the Dept. of Health and Family Services website)

Policy samples from other effective child care programs

Licensing regulations and wage and hour laws

Interviewing center directors or other successful service businesses about their procedures in order to gain an understanding of a variety of ways to handle situations.

Community resources, libraries, Child Care Resource and Referral agencies , small business development centers, technical colleges, etc.

Several decisions you will make as you develop your policies relate directly to your budget and your ability to succeed in the child care business. You need to have fee policies that will make it clear to parents how you charge for services, how they need to pay, when they need to pay and exactly what will happen if they do not pay. You need to make it clear to staff what they will and will not be paid for, what benefits you offer and how you will manage other working conditions. Policy decisions need to be made before you can fine-tune an operating budget.

Step One
Develop an outline for each policy. Gather information regarding each topic to read and review. Decide what procedures would work best for your particular, unique program and write it down. This is a long and involved process. It takes a great deal of time and effort.

Step Two
Complete the Group Day Care Policy Checklist indicating the page numbers of all the items listed. Remember, the items asterisked are required information that needs to be included in your policy.

Step Three
Mail a copy your policy drafts and the checklist to your WCCIP Technical Advisor for review and comment. When you meet with your Technical Advisor she will go over each policy in detail to clarify language, suggest revisions and discuss best practice.

A copy of your completed policies and checklist will be sent to your Licensing Specialist as part of your application packet.

You may want to develop Parent and Staff Handbooks as well as policies. These handbooks are not required but are a good business practice. Much of the information in policies is too detailed and does not apply to parents or staff.

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