Little Heaven Daycare - A licensed home daycare for children ages 0 to 4 years
Daycare, babysitter, childcare, baby, School, daycare Corte Madera, Marin County
A licensed home daycare for children ages 0 to 4 years. Little Heaven family is a Happy, clean, educational and fun environment for all children. . Located in Corte Madera, CA
A licensed home daycare for children ages 0 to 4 years. Little Heaven family is a Happy, clean, educational and fun environment for all children. . Located in Corte Madera, CA
Little Heaven Daycare - A licensed home daycare for children ages 0 to 4 years
Daycare, babysitter, childcare, baby, School, daycare Corte Madera, Marin County
The day care industry is a continuum from personal parental care to large, regulated institutions. The vast majority of childcare is still performed by the parents, in house nanny or through informal arrangements with relatives, neighbors or friends. For example, in Canada, among two parent families with at least one working parent, 62% of parents handle the childcare themselves, 32% have other in-home care (nannies, relatives, neighbours or friends) and only 6.5% use a formal day care center[1].
Where the market is sufficiently large or there are government subsidies for daycare, for-profit corporate day care exists. In North America, Bright Horizons Family Solutions is one of the largest such companies[2]. It is a publicly traded company operating over 600 daycare centers[3]. The Australian government's childcare subsidy has allowed the creation of a large private-sector industry in that country[4]. ABC Learning Centres is a publicly traded company running about 1000 daycare centres in Australia and New Zealand and another 500 in the USA[5]. Another factor favoring large corporate day cares is the existence of childcare facilities in the workplace. Large corporations will not handle this employee benefit directly themselves and will seek out large corporate providers to manage their corporate daycares. Most smaller, for-profit day cares operate out of a single location.
The geographic limitations, and the diversity in type of daycare providers, make child daycare a highly fragmented industry. The largest providers own only a very small share of the market. This leads to frustration for parents who are attempting to find quality child daycare, with 87% of them describing the traditional search for child daycare as "difficult and frustrating"[citation needed].
Non-profit day cares have some structural advantages over for-profit operations. They may receive preferential treatment in rents especially if they are affiliated with a church that is otherwise unoccupied during the week, or with a school that has surplus space. Location within a school may further bring the advantage of coordinated programs with the school and the advantage of a single location for parents who have older school-age children as well. Parents are typically the legal owners of the non-profit day care and will routinely provide consulting services (for example accounting, legal, human resource) for free. Non-profits have an advantage in fund-raising as most people will not donate to a for-profit organization. Non-profits, however, are typically limited in size to a single location as the parent-owners have no motivation to manage other locations where their children are not present. They may suffer from succession issues as children grow and parents leave the management of the day care to others. Local governments, often municipalities, may operate non-profit day care centers.
Home day cares are operated by a single individual out of their home. This is often a stay-at-home parent who seeks supplemental income while caring for their own child. Local legislation may regulate the number and ages of children allowed before the home is considered an official day care centre and subject to more stringent safety regulations. Some home day cares operate illegally with respect to tax legislation where the care provider does not report fees as income and the parent does not receive a receipt to qualify for childcare tax deductions. As home day cares do not pay rent, they are typically less expensive than day care centres. Home day care providers may still be certified like more organized daycares.
Franchising of home day cares attempts to bring economies of scale to home day cares. A central operator handles marketing, administration and perhaps some central purchasing while the actual care occurs in individual homes. The central operator may provide training to the individual care providers.
For all providers, the largest expense is labour. In a 1999 Canadian survey of formal child care centres, labour accounts for 63% of costs and the industry had an average profit of 5.3%[6]. Given the labour intensive nature of the industry, it is not surprising that the same survey showed little economies of scale between larger and smaller operators.
Local legislation may regulate the operation of day care centres. The legislation will define what constitutes a day care (so as to not regulate individual baby sitters). It may specify the physical facilities (washroom, eating, sleeping, lighting levels, etc). The minimum window space may be such that it precludes day cares from being in a basement. It may specify the minimum floor space per child (for example 2.8 square metres) and the maximum number of children per room (for example 24). It may mandate minimum outdoor time (for example 2 hours for programs 6 hours or longer). It may mandate staffing ratios (for example 1:3 for under 18 months, 1:5 for 18-30 months, 1:8 for over 30 months, and even higher ratios for older children). Legislation may mandate qualifications of supervisors. Staff typically do not require any qualifications but staff under the age of eighteen may require supervision. Typically, once the child reaches the age of twelve, they are no longer covered by day care legislation and programs for older children may not be regulated.
In Canada, the workforce is predominantly female (95%) and low paid, averaging only 60% of average workforce wage[7]. Many employees are at local minimum wage and are typically paid by the hour rather than salaried. In the United States, "child care worker" is the fifth most female-dominated occupation (95.5% female in 1999).[8]
In non-profits, the title of the most senior supervisor is typically "executive director", following the convention of most non-profit organizations.
There are often local industry associations that lobby governments on childcare policy, promote the industry to the public[1] or help parents choose the right daycare provider.
