Opening a Daycare?

Question

What are your thoughts of opening a daycare for special needs children only? What suggestions do you have? What concerns should I have?

Thanks a Million! :)

Answer 1

I think if done well, daycare for special neds children only is a wonderful idea.  Concerns you should have is the ability you will have of paying adequate staff, yourself, and your facility costs from the income you can receive from fewer children.  Your child/staff ratio will be smaller (I hope) than it would be for less challenged children.  I would hope the highest you would go would be 1staff/3children.  (Depends on their special needs).  Expertise for working with special needs children is necessary, so you and your staff will need training and ongoing training.  Another concern is your facility and having the necessary and appropriate space and equipment and the ability to prepare and serve some specialized diets.

Then of course your liabilities must be considered for your facility insurance and the insurance necessary for you and your staff.  So.....Maybe its financially best to provide childcare then include special needs children, frequently there will be many special needs children in your childcare enrollees anyway and if thats your mission to address each child's special needs then its all the better for every child.  

But if you decide to go ahead with special needs children only, my suggestion is to keep it small unless you are skilled at management and multitasking beyond the norm, and have expertise in running and maintaining care facilities.

If you are looking for something for just yourself to do, many families can and do use respite care, where you go into the home and provide 24 to 72 hours of care for a special needs child.  Some childcare facilities provide respite care as well but it is rarely overnight.  You might want to check out some of the special needs camps that are around the US, I'm sure you could find where they are on the Web.  They probably have lots of excellent information about Special Needs care, its challenges and rewards.  Anyway, good luck.

Answer 2

Well first of all I think it is great you want to do this!!! It takes a lot of patience and much more work of course. Also you probably can't keep as many children as you could in a regular daycare. You probably also have to hire more helpers. I think a big concern would be keeping employees who you could trust and who could take care of the special needs. I think you could probably get government help if you wanted since it would be all special needs. I think it is a great idea but like I said it is more responsibility.

Answer 3

I would have some concerns. First. there would be no typical children to act as role models. Second, if the children were seriously impaired it might be very hard on staff so that you would probably need more than the number required by state regulation. I also suspect that you would have to deal with both Social Services and State ed. regulations, and they would probably conflict.

Answer 4

I think it's a great idea.  My concerns would be to make sure you have adequate training in CPR, training in dealing/teaching  the mentally/physically handicapped, hiring adequate staff with the same kind of training and having medical staff on hand in case of an emergency.  My other concerns would be to make sure that your facility is accident proof and accessible to those in wheelchairs and crutches.

Answer 5

I think that’s just wrong to isolate children with special needs.  After all, they will have to learn how to live with children without special needs when they are older.  It seriously is wrong.  They won’t have any positive role models to look up to.  Children without special needs can be like a positive role model to them.  When you take them out, how will they ever learn? The goal of society is to learn to live together.  How is by isolating children with special needs going to meet the goal of living together? We already live in a harsh world.  Why make it worse by isolating children with special needs from the rest of the kids?

Answer 6

Great Idea. Connect your local government for legal criteria and state funding...Good Luck!!