Pre-enrollment Visits
From the Parents' Perspective
In order to choose quality care for your children, you will need to arrange to meet and interview several prospective providers before finding one with whom you are comfortable. In addition, once you have narrowed the choice to a provider (or two) who's style and policies you like, I strongly recommend arranging for 5 to 10 additional "pre-enrollment" visits. These visits should be held during even and/or weekend hours so that the provider's full attention can be on you and your children.
My mentor (and favorite care provider for my own children) introduced me to the idea of pre-enrollment visits and I have adopted this policy for my own child care business. The purpose of these visits is to allow your children to get to know the provider (and visa-versa) before the first day of care. In addition, you will have time to ask any remaining questions you may have forgotten during the formal interviewing process, and you yourself will have time to get more comfortable with the idea of leaving your children in the provider's care.
(For a list of questions to ask a prospective provider, click here: Provider Question List)Pre-enrollment visits should be kept fairly short, usually about an hour per session, and should mostly take place in the provider's home. One or two visits could be scheduled in your home, if you desire, but this is not necessary. The main focus of these visits should be to transition your children to the new situation of being with the provider in the provider's home. During these visits, it is important that you observe the provider's interaction with your children, and also evaluate how comfortable you are likely to be with the environment. Be sure your children are expected to follow the provider's rules while in the provider's home, and observe how the provider handles any of the inevitable indiscretions. Relax, and enjoy the visit, and get comfortable with the new situation. This will help your children relax as well, and will make the transition to a new caregiver a less traumatic experience for everyone involved.
From the Provider's Perspective
In addition to all of the items listed above for parents, pre-enrollments will be a benefit to you as a provider. While these visits may seem like a burden on your already limited free time, they will greatly improve your situation in the long run. By getting to know your clients and their children ahead of the first day of enrollment, you will have the opportunity to deal with any problems that come up before hand. Over the course of these visits, you will hopefully have the opportunity to observe the parents' interaction with their children to get a feel for how they handle discipline issues, as well as acquire a general feel for their parenting style.
By getting to know the children ahead of the first day of care, it will be much less traumatic for the children when their parents leave for the first time. This is not to say that the first day will go 100% smoothly. The children will still be adjusting to the other kids in your care, and this will be a new situation for them, especially if they have not been in care before, or if they have been with several other providers already. However, by having as many visits as possible before the first day of enrollment, you will have done everything you can to reduce the severity of problems that can occur. This will help you not only by reducing the stress on you and the children, but will also foster a more stable business in helping to reduce unnecessary turn-over.
The choice of whether to charge for the pre-enrollment visits is entirely up to you the provider, however, I recommend against it. These visits are as much a benefit to you as to the clients, and by charging a fee you risk loosing otherwise good prospects. Also, by holding the visits without charge, you can feel free to keep the visits short.
How many visits should you have?
The choice of how many visits to have is entirely up to you, but I strongly recommend that you do at least 5, preferably 10. I realize that this is a lot to busy parents and providers alike, but it really will make things better on everyone in the long run.
For kids aged 4 and older who have been in daycare or preschool once before, 5 visits is probably enough, assuming there are no unresolved issues with the parents.
For kids aged 6 months to 4 years, I strongly suggest the full 10 visits. This is because children of this age, especially ones who have been with more than one previous care provider, often experience separation issues. Having 10 visits will give you more time to allow the child to adjust to the new environment, and make things less stressful on everyone.
For infants under about 6 months old, 5 visits is probably fine, as long as the child has not yet been with another provider. Babies of this age are not as likely to experience separation anxiety as much as an older child, but use your own best judgement. When in doubt, do more visits!
Any time a child has been with more than one previous provider, or if the child has been a victim of any type of abuse or other stressful situation such as divorce, I recommend that you do at least the full 10 visits. You may even decide to do additional visits, depending upon the nature of the situation and yours and the client family's needs. As a general rule of thumb, the more visits, the better. Don't cheat yourself (parent OR provider) out of this opportunity to assure the best care situation for the child.