Welcome to the first of our monthly provider profiles, where we highlight the great childcare workers in Durham!

Name: Mandi Francis

Daycare type: Caterpillar Kids Home Daycare, Whitby, Ontario

How long in business?: Almost four years

Why did you decide to become a childcare provider?: I’ve actually never done anything but work with children. I’ve worked in daycare centres, elementary schools, swimming pools, and libraries. Becoming a home childcare provider seemed like the ‘next step’ for me after I became a parent myself.

What’s your favourite part of the day?: There are so many aspects of my job that I love!! My favourite part has to be greeting the children each morning when they arrive at daycare. They are so happy to see their friends and excited about the upcoming day.

What do you find most challenging about your job?: Definitely time management!

What makes you unique?: My passion to bring professionalism into home childcare
makes me unique. It’s my strong believe that the same health and safety
standards should be followed in a home childcare setting as they are in centre-based care.
I would really like to see home childcare settings inspected on a regular basis by ministry officials.

If you could change one thing, what would it be?: There aren’t many things that I’d change. Maybe warmer weather so that preparing for outdoor time was easier!?!

Anie, one of the women from my weekly Durham Mom’s Night Out group, is due with her first baby right about now, and is already thinking about daycare for her daughter — and rightly so.

She is only able to take four months off from work.

So that means she needs care for an almost-newborn baby, and really soon. Here are the questions her and her husband are debating:

• Do they start looking for care now, or wait until it’s closer to the time they need it?
• The pros and cons of home, centre and nanny care for such a young baby
• Will a newborn be more expensive to car for? If so, how much?

Any advice for her?

I’ve sent her the links from the resource page for parents on the site, which includes great links on questions to ask potential childcare providers, and how to decide what is right for your family.

Personally, I think she should start looking ASAP, as finding care for a baby so young may prove to be difficult when a year or older is far more common. I’d think a nanny would be the best bet, at least for the first few months until the baby is older. Which raises the question of a live-in or live-out person.

Anie’s going to be checking in her for your tips and suggestions, so please leave a comment below for her.

Thanks for sharing your expertise!

With the holiday season here, I of course want to get Julia, our home daycare provider a gift. She is such an invaluable member of our and Lucy’s life — almost like an extended family member — that she deserves far more than we could ever afford.

She and her three boys are avid campers (seriously, they went winter camping last year. Like in the snow and everything), so last year we got her a $25 gift card to Moutain Equipment Co-op.

Julia isn’t much of a girly-girl, so my inital instinct to treat her to a manicure/pedicure doesn’t go (plus one of her sons actually laughed when I suggested it). I’d really like to get her something just for her, as she devotes so much time to her daycare and her own kids that I think she deserves and needs it.

Suggestions?

Caregivers, what gifts have you received in the past? Any favourites jump out at you?

Parents, what have you given to your daycare providers?

Oh, the excruciating process of interviewing childcare providers. In our search for home, or “family”, care for Lucy, I interviewed more than a dozen providers either in person or on the phone.

(I’ve been writing about Lucy and our family’s wonderful (and sometimes wacky and sad) childcare searches and experiences — with Daycare Debbie, Julia and Shelby — for years. Read it here.)

Although absolutely necessary when looking for the special person (or centre) to be, almost, your surrogate, it doesn’t make it any less stressful.

Just like interviewing for a job, one of the most helpful tips I read about before beginning the search was to be prepared and know exactly the questions to ask a potential provider.

There’s a wealth of information for parents online, often broken down by type of childcare, too. Here are our favourites:

• About Kids Health (from the Hospital for Sick Children): Questions to ask for infant/toddler care, preschool care, and school-age before-/after-school care
• Ontario Ministry of Children and Youth Services: Childcare choices and questions
• CBC news in-depth on daycare: Questions parents should ask
• BC Health Guide on choosing childcare: Questions, plus how to decide between a home and centre
• The search is on: A lengthy but worthwhile read from the Brantford Expositor

Any favourite sites or resources to share? Leave ‘em below!