Managing Risk in Child Care

A couple of years ago, we were approached by a lady in Illinois who was preparing to start a child care program.  The state had a pretty new requirement for a Risk Management Plan as one of the start-up requirements.  This provider asked if we had such a plan available for sale.  My first thought was yes, we had one that we developed for our own insurance provider; it was 2 pages long.  This provider assured me that Illinois was looking for a bit more than that.  As we talked, I started to realize just why she seemed so overwhelmed by the requirement.  She sent me the specific requirements from Department of Children and Family Services.  Basically, the state of Illinois is looking for providers to think about all of the possible risks associated with operating a child care program and address those risks in a document.  The areas that must be addressed are:

• Staffing
• Enrolling and Discharging Children
• Food Service
• Indoor and Outdoor Premises
• Indoor and Outdoor Equipment
• Programs, Activities and Services; Transportation
• Health and Medical
• Emergency/Disaster Planning
• Administration
• Parent Communication
• Pets

 Whew!  That’s quite a list.  No wonder she was feeling a bit stressed.

Our tactic in developing this document was to address all of the various aspects of a program.  For example, we provide specifics on infant, toddler, preschool and school-age care.  If your program doesn’t offer care for infants, you can just delete those parts of the document.  Our document is 77 pages long, but your final product will be shorter as you take out the parts that you don’t need.

What made this project really interesting was receiving a phone call from a provider in Minnesota who said that our plan covered things that she didn’t need, but then didn’t cover some things that the state of Minnesota requires.  So, of course, we studied the Minnesota requirements and wrote a Risk Management Plan (much shorter than the Illinois plan) tailored for their state. 

So, my assurance to you is that if you are looking for a very comprehensive Child Care Risk Management Plan, ours should fit your needs.  However, if you find that your state has specific requirements that are not addressed, just let me know and we will tailor a plan for your state as well.  We like to make sure that our customers are completely satisfied (and we appreciate hearing about specific requirements from various states).   Also, FYI, if we write a document for you and can make it generic so that we can sell it to other providers as well, instead of charging our consulting fees, we just charge you what the online fee of that particular document will be. 

Let me know if we can help you with something!

Misty