Want to Turn Your Home Into A Daycare? Here’s How to Get Started
By: John Garcia | Date Posted: February 7, 2023
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Homeownership has never been more common than it is right now; fewer people are renting or living in shared accommodations than ever before. One notable advantage of owning your own home is that you can run a business out of it. Starting businesses from rental properties is never allowed.
One lucrative business that can be started from your home is a daycare center. High homeownership rates mean more people are in employment and are unable to take care of their children themselves.
This post will tell you how you can turn your home into a daycare:
Buying Equipment
Unless you want other people’s children clambering all over your furniture, you should invest in proper daycare equipment. You can work with a supplier of school chairs across the UK to get everything you need, as these suppliers tend more often than not to also be able to provide tables and stools. School equipment is the best kind you can buy as it is made to withstand the chaos of children. Set it all up in a room away from your family and the inner sanctum of your home.
Getting Registered
Before buying equipment, you need to get registered with Ofsted. It is illegal to operate a daycare or nursery in the United Kingdom without first receiving Ofsted’s blessing. Ofsted is the educational conduct authority in the UK, responsible for monitoring the performance of schools, nurseries, and colleges. Receiving Ofsted’s approval should not be difficult. As long as you do not have a criminal record, then there is no real reason for them not to grant you permission.
Babyproofing House
Even if you will be looking after teenagers, it is important that you babyproof your house. Allowing young people into your home can be dangerous. Children and teenagers have tendencies to break and damage things. However, your furniture and home being damaged should be the last of your concerns. If young people are injured in your care, even if it was their fault, you can be held accountable by their parents and sued. Young people being injured in your case could also result in Ofsted stripping you of your childminder license, preventing you from ever being able to act as one again.
Online Marketing
Unless you are planning on spreading the word about your daycare through telepathy, online marketing is needed. The vast majority of daycare owners market their facilities on social media, usually on Facebook. Find your town or city’s private page and begin posting about your service there. Eventually, parents should start getting in touch with you, asking if you will take care of their children while they are at work. Make sure that you charge reasonable prices so that you can attract customers on reduced incomes, which there are many of right now.
Encouraging Referrals
Marketing is important, as explored in the previous section. One highly effective form of marketing is word of mouth. Word-of-mouth marketing can be a fantastic way of drumming up business for your daycare. You should make an active effort to encourage customers to tell their friends about you, do not just assume that they are going to.
You can help yourself by offering a high-quality service and going above and beyond for the children you look after. If you become successful enough, you could rent out a commercial premise and base yourself from there, turning your daycare into a nursery.
Positive Feedback
As mentioned earlier, word-of-mouth marketing is a good way of attracting new clients. You cannot rely on all of your customers to tell friends and family about you, however. What you can do, though, is to ask them to leave positive feedback on your website or social media page. People will usually research businesses before they buy their products or support them. If your page has no reviews, then parents are not going to want to put their children in your care.
Reasonable Prices
Do not charge ridiculous prices for your services. It is common for those new in the care industry to think their service is worth more than they actually are. Right now, there is a cost of living crisis, making many people’s lives very difficult. Unless you go out of your way to ensure your prices are reasonable, you will alienate many potential customers. Offering affordable prices will help you make your business appeal to parents who are not financially able to send their children to expensive nurseries and daycare centers, earning you a lot of money.
Consider Accreditations
Experience is important to parents. Unless you are able to show a resume detailing years of experience or at least academic study, they are unlikely to want to send their children to you. Accreditations can be a good way of giving people confidence, making them feel safe with you looking after their children. You can take online courses or you can go down to your local community college and take a nursing and parenting course.
In-person courses are always going to be viewed more favorably by parents, but as long as you have a diploma or degree of some kind, you should have no trouble finding clients. Publish information about your diplomas, degrees, and accreditations on your portfolio and in your resume.
Getting Experience
Getting experience will be beneficial to your business. You do not have to have much, but some will help. The most logical place to go in search of experience is a school or nursery in your area. Finding work in such an establishment will give you experience in working with young people. Having experience of this kind will instill confidence in parents, making them more likely to send their children to your daycare center. You will need health and safety accreditations in order to find work in a nursery.
Parents are in dire need of safe and affordable daycare centers, so they can focus on their jobs. If you are fortunate enough to own your own home, then starting a daycare center might be something to consider. You do not need a lot of money to get started, making it a good option for individuals on restricted incomes.
Thank you for reading!
