Establishing a day care center can be fun, especially if you think about the fulfillment it can bring you financially and emotionally. However, there are a lot of things to consider since you are dealing with children – most notorious for their penchant to get into trouble.The foremost task that you need to embark on is childproofing your facility. If you have decided to base your child care facility at home, then here are the top safety devices you will need to have.
Safety grills or gates. If you have stairs and open passages to areas that you do not want your preschoolers to wander into. Install small wooden gates or grills that have a loch high enough for these little totters not to reach. For bigger kids that are easier to monitor, it would also be best to put picture signs that they can see immediately. For example, put a red hand picture sign saying “Stop!” in the entrance of areas you do not want them to go to.
Make sure that the fence you have around your property is fixed at all times and that the spaces in between would not let a small child escape.
There are available soft corner protectors in stores today. These would prevent your day care children from suffering from injuries when they bump into the corners of tables you have around. Also plastic electric socket covers should be plugged into electric outlets. These would deter children from sticking their hands or other small toy parts into the outlets.
Smoke detectors are a must in any establishment whether public or privately owned. Your house will probably have some installed already. Just in case you still do not have these, have these put in immediately. You also need to check the smoke detectors once a month to make sure they work properly. While you are at it, make sure that you include fire safety awareness programs in your activities, with actual fire drills and exit plans.
You are going to need to make sure that all your cabinets and doors have locks and latches that are childproof but are easy to open for adults. Doors that have multiple locks may not be safe because in cases of emergency, adults may have a hard time fumbling with the many bolts and locks s/he has to deal with. Just make sure that they are placed high enough for children not to reach them, especially if they lead to the pool area. Also, keep in mind that a day care center facilitator should not leave the children by themselves indoors or outdoors at any time. The average ratio of caregiver to number of children is 1:4. And keep a complete set of keys attached to you at all times.
Check around the house for long cords and tassels from the phones and the window blinds. Use a cordless phone in the day care center, and shorten the length of the cord loops for your blinds. A child can easily trip on, or worse, strangle himself, with these things.
See: How to start a daycare
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