Introduction to Childminding course tomorrow..help please..

[SwimmingUpHillThroughCustard]

got a few questions like how to actually get mindees, rates of pay, advertising, equiptment etc...but does anyone have a good tip for me?, anything i can ask or enquire about?
thanks

They will deal with all that sort of stuff during course.

How many new minders have they registered in the last year?

How many of these are full?

How many have stopped minding because they have no children?

(not being negative - you understand...it's a big problem here)

Katymac - I wish that I had asked those questions when I first registered as taken me a year now to begin to become established. Caused me great financial loss due to very few children.

I was encouraged to become registered overnight - told lots of work for that - became registered for overnight and had only one enquiry

A suggestion made recently in this area was that the childminding mentors (I'm one of a handful locally) come along and meet the prospective childminders whilst they are actually doing their course. We (the mentors) all thought it was a great idea - except that if we were asked "is there much work?", it would be very hard to say in front of tutors, "well, no actually, we're only booked up because we've done it for a zillion years and know how the grapevine works. We get very little work through the Childrens Information Service, you'll have to network like mad, and you will be lucky if you EVER get a call for a full-time baby doing regular hours." Hmmm, don't think it would be appreciated!!

I've also found that some of the tutors are not necessarily aware of exactly what kind of rates are really being charged.

(I would probably say that it's a great job, but that you have to be realistic about how soon you'd fill your vacancies but, hey, I wouldn't want to sound negative!)

thanks for those
katymac, by full, do you mean full with mindees or fully reg?

full with children

Swimminguphill - im also about to become registered if all goes well and i was thinking the same things but i have now decided that theres no way of knowing if you will have any children or not so i've decided that i want to start in march but if i havent had any enquiries by then (hoping to advertise in feb) then i will get an evening job until i have enough children to make it worth me staying at home full time this way i can still be there for my children and any children that i take on i'll only have to work a few nights a week just to help pay the bills, im hoping it wont be for long as i will be campaining like mad to get new clients/ mindee's in the meantime.

And when you're registered, make sure you post it here (with an idea of roughly where you are based) to add to Katymac's list of minders!

Oh dam (btw that's the correct spelling aparentlt - it was a small indian coin) I must update the list and bring it to the top of thelist

I'm off to my 1st aid today - so might have a go tomorrow

thanks for all tips..i am doing the first part of the course tonight..should take about 11 weeks but will have to miss 'starting a business' class because we're on holiday, so might have to go and see guy another time?..really looking forwrad to it

oh yeah, just being a bit of a bitch here(maybe), but at weekend we went into a supermarket and there was a little boy same age as my dd, playing in the revolving doors, putting his hands in the gap were they meet before they go round again..when i looked it was the son of a childminder who i met when pregnant and she wasnt the least bit interested in what he was doing!!!..so looks like im worried over nothing getting through the course!

I thought the ICP was really good when I did it, be prepared to make stuff and play with toys!!

Get talking to the other people on the course as you'll probably be seeing alot of them on other courses and at local groups

yeah it says intro for tonight so i assume it will be very informal