How to Start a Daycare Service

Video Transcript

"Hello, I'm Sarah Norris with Total Childcare Center in Wilmington, North Carolina. Today we're going to talk about how to start a daycare service. I would phrase this as how to start a daycare facility because it could be a home or a center. It is not an easy task. It is one that you would need to go in with much thought. Beginning a daycare center was a major task for me even though I had education and experience. I would recommend that you not begin this unless you do have an educational background and you need to have some teaching experience and preferably some admin experience also. It does not say that with rules and regs you may not be able to start one without this, but you will be much better off if you have some education experience in this area. One of the first things I would do if I lived in the state of North Carolina is that I would call the Department of Human Resources in Raleigh and ask for the Division of Child Development, and then I would ask if there's a pre-licensing conference that's going to be held, a pre-licensing workshop. This is an excellent workshop. It will give you all the information that you would need as far as rules and regulations. They'll talk about budget. They'll talk about hiring personnel. It will meet all the issues that are involved in beginning this type of business, and it would be very helpful. If you do not live in North Carolina, then I would search in my own state and find out what is available. This will give you a guideline with all the necessary forms that you would need, and all the areas that you would need to consider, including the community that you're going to begin in, the size of the building, the ages of the children, where you might receive funding, how much will it cost, what is the cost of care within your general area. It will give you information as to how to find these important facts that you will need in order to start this business. Childcare is a business. It is not easy. It is rewarding and it can be done, but it will require many hours of hard work. So today we've talked a little bit about starting a childcare business. I would recommend that you definitely contact your state agency, find out what is available to help you with the resources that you would need to start putting the ideas on paper, and developing a business plan and starting a childcare center."