considering becoming a childminder

[Littletabbyocelot]

I have never worked directly with children before, though the early part of my career was in childcare charities and then in children's hospital services. Having been able to take redundancy at the end of my maternity leave, and having reached a dead end in my career, I'm now rethinking what i can do and I'm in the fortunate position of having time and money to make the change.

I don't think childminding is what I want to do for the rest of my life but I don't know what is, and I think it could be a good fit now. I love spending time with kids, enjoy planning activities and healthy cooking, have a good space for it etc.

My idea is to spend the next year just with my 1 year old twins and to do appropriate training. Then to have one mindee or to offer flexible sessions. Dh and I have budgeted so my redundancy Will allow me not to work till they go to school but we'd be more comfortable if I could earn about 300 a month after a year. So I could be quite flexible starting up.

I would plan on keeping going after they started school if it suited me as a career.

But I kind of feel childcare should be a vocation and so I'm wondering if it's a crazy idea?

Sorry, it seems my phone has it's own ideas about punctuation and capitals.

It's a lovely job I enjoy it but not for the faint hearted!

Local council pre registration course
Paediatric first aid course
Safe guarding course
Environmental Health course and registration
Early Years Foundation Stage training
Register with Ofsted
Register as self employed
All above compulsory training and most you have to pay for.

Then policies, procedures, early years journals, daily diaries, planning all have to be done weekly.

That's before you start looking after the child/ren. Actually looking after the kids is the easy bit.

There's probably loads more I could list but I have been working since 6am just finished and need to get tea and see to my kids now!

I have another full time job and use childminding as an extra income. I have very young children and only do adhoc childminding. For my children it is like having lots of playdates, the mindees are very much part of our family and the parents are amazing. Its a job where you can tailor make it to suit you. I keep things very simple, adhoc contracts for all, hourly fee, no retainers, latefees or other fees and I am full with a waiting list. Ofsted liked the setup, i do minimal paperwork, and it works allround.
Think of how it would work for you and take on the occasional adhoc child to start with. You will have all the equipment and knowledge so start small snd slow and build up. Good luck!!

I have another full time job and use childminding as an extra income. I have very young children and only do adhoc childminding. For my children it is like having lots of playdates, the mindees are very much part of our family and the parents are amazing. Its a job where you can tailor make it to suit you. I keep things very simple, adhoc contracts for all, hourly fee, no retainers, latefees or other fees and I am full with a waiting list. Ofsted liked the setup, i do minimal paperwork, and it works allround.
Think of how it would work for you and take on the occasional adhoc child to start with. You will have all the equipment and knowledge so start small snd slow and build up. Good luck!!

Thank you both for your replies. That's a really helpful list Kathryn. Oddly, the paperwork you mention makes it sound more appealing. I've managed inspected services before & enjoy writing policies, planning etc. HRH I really like the sound of your approach, think it would suit my situation.