How to Plan and Start a Babysitting Co-op

Co-ops have long served as a means for groups of people to pool their resources to achieve their common goals inexpensively. Baby sitting co-ops are gaining more popularity as knowledge of them grows. Baby-sitting co-ops are usually smaller than large daycare centers. A co-op can be made up of a large group of parents, or a small group that choice is up to the participants. Parents basically take turns providing child care for one another's children providing what amounts to free childcare so they can work, run errands, or just have some down time. A co-op will take some preparation and planning to successfully start and maintain. Larger co-ops will require more preparation and planning than small co-ops. The rewards of co-ops are well worth the effort as they help cut the cost of daycare and also help parents to make friends with other parents. They also provide many benefits for the children being cared for.

Over time co-op kids grow closer to one another than they would in regular day care because there is higher turn over of both employees and children in traditional day care settings. Also since the children are cared for in smaller settings they won't be exposed to as many illnesses as they would be if they attended a child care center with fifty other students. Another benefit of co-ops is that they are very flexible allowing them to meet a variety of parent's day care needs. When forming your co-op and attracting new members try to find a diverse group of parents. Having some members that are stay at home parents and some that work outside the home can really help parents balance their daycare needs and possibly earn a little bit of extra money. Most co-ops allow parents who need more daycare than they can provide to pay the co-op an hourly rate for any leftover hours. This fee is then distributed to parents that use fewer hours of care than they provide.

The first step in planning a co-op is recruiting interested members. I would start with friends and family and then perhaps look to parents of children that attend school with your child. I recommend setting up a get together after you have found some interested parents. Browse your state government's website before the meeting to discover their child care provider laws and regulations. Most states allow an individual to care for a set number of unrelated children, in addition to their own children, before requiring the individual to be licensed. You'll need this information to efficiently set up babysitting schedules without overloading parents with more children than is legally allowable or safe. The initial meeting should also include discussion about each individual's child care needs, policies your co-op will adopt concerning discipline and other matters, and at least a temporary assignment of duties. Write all of this down in addition to beginning a log or calendar book to keep track of baby sitting assignments.

Co-ops have a variety of ways of assigning duties and keeping track of baby sitting assignments. Some rotate secretarial duties between families on a bi-weekly or monthly basis. Others appoint a permanent secretary that is paid either from small monthly fees ($5.00 - $10.00 per family per month depending on number of children and hours of care required) and / or in co-op childcare credits for his/her services. I prefer this approach, as rotating secretarial duties can be confusing and result in miscommunication. Communication is the key to making a co-op work. Yahoo groups are an excellent, free tool your co-op can utilize to both stay in touch and provide your secretary with support in scheduling and handling your co-ops paperwork. The secretary can moderate so he / she can easily use the group's calendar function as an electronic logbook to keep track of who is providing and utilizing child care and when. The message function makes it easy to request and offer care. Yahoo groups also have an optional chat function, which is great for co-op members to use for socializing. Small info files for each child can be kept in the files area and should include child's age, allergies, medical conditions, and penchant for sticking things up their nose or other quarks. Members should be required to provide that information about their children before utilizing co-op care for them. Having a centralized area that is private and limited to co-op members is a very effective communication and organization tool. When planning a co-op communication and organization are priorities but they pale in comparison to the priority of safety.

It is very important that every parent interested in participating in the co-op should be required to have a background check. Parents commit crimes too, and criminals and pedophiles do not always look the part. Background checks can be obtained quickly, easily, and generally for a low cost from the police station. Most states also have family safety care registries. When a person joins the registry the state conducts a thorough background check that includes criminal
history, sex offender status, and checks to see if child protective services have ever had to open a case on the individual and what the outcome of that case was. These background checks are paramount to insuring the safety of your co-op. You can usually find information about state family care safety registries on your state government's website. I recommend also requiring parents to sign an agreement that states the nature of your co-op and briefly covers its policies specifically concerning acceptable discipline tactics and fees required when a parent uses more child care than they provide. This will help avoid miscommunication down the road. Also in the interest of safety, corporal punishment of any kind including spanking should be prohibited (with the exception of a member disciplining their own child). Many parents have different ideas about what level of physical force is acceptable when disciplining children and allowing for any kind of corporal punishment is asking for trouble and possible allegations of abuse between parents.

When babysitting co-ops are properly planned and maintained they can be an excellent, low cost alternative to traditional daycare. Co-op benefits are not only material because co-ops bring parents and children together to form extended support networks for one another. If you utilize a good one when you leave your child in another members care you can take heart knowing that your child is quite possibly on their way to making life long friends with the member's children while being taken care of in a family style, personal environment. You will also be able to befriend people with children that face the same issues in every day life that you do. Hilary Clinton says it takes a village to raise a child, but in my opinion good parents supported by a good babysitting co-op will do the job just fine.