Day Care Center Ideas

Day care centers are organizations that working parents turn to as secure environments for babies and young children. Day care center services vary from center to center, but most include some early childhood education component in addition to supervision of children and play activities. It can be hard to find a unique selling proposition for a day care center, but there are ways to distinguish a day care center from its competitors.

All Certified Staff

Many day care centers employ people who have no formal training in day care or early childhood education. It would be a point of difference and a tremendous comfort to parents that everyone employed at a center has been certified as a child development associate or has a degree in early childhood education.

Routine Medicql Exams

Day care centers are usually thought of as the source of sickness among children in their care rather than the source of routine medical exams. By affiliating with a local pediatrician, a day care center could offer routine medical exams and administer seasonal flu shots. Partnering with a dental hygienist, a day care center could do exams of children's teeth and make recommendations to parents if additional dental care is warranted.

Sick Rooms

Every parent worries about the spread of germs from sick children at a day care center. Similarly, working parents can't always take time off to attend to a child who is sick but not seriously so. A day care center could have a special sick room for ill children. This room would be isolated from the rest of the facility. Children could be under the care of a nurse or nurse practitioner who could dispense meds and generally monitor the health of a sick child, giving parents a comfort level and letting them feel that they have not neglected their child at a time of need.

Play Dates

Busy working parents are often at a loss to establish the relationships with other parents that can facilitate the first friends of their child. Other parents might be looking to broaden their children's group of friends to help them learn socializing skills and have healthy friendships. A day care center could facilitate formal play dates for parents by merely facilitating requests via a sign-up sheet or other mechanism such as a website form.

Baby Sitting

Parents who trust a day care center Monday through Friday would love the option of a drop-in service on the weekends. Offering parents the ability to have a Saturday afternoon off to do errands or clean their home or get a haircut would be a welcome service. Additionally, offering child care services after hours on Friday and Saturday nights so parents could have a built-in babysitting service when they might want to go out at night would be a real point of difference for a day care center

References

• Child Care Workers