Saturday, January 14, 2012

Daycare Investigation....(tonight at 11:00)

Early this week, our licensing coordinator instructed me to contact The Early Learning Coalition. It's a local organization that provides the funding for foster children to attend daycare as well as providing many other services and resources for families in Pasco and Hernando County. Seeing as we should be licensed any day now, she wanted us to get the ball rolling on finding a daycare. I was beginning to lose my patience after calling for the last 3 days, leaving countless messages (one with a particularly snooty receptionist) and sent one slightly rude email expressing my frustrations on not getting a returned call. Well, my persistence did not go unnoticed, because she finally called me back yesterday afternoon. In the end I felt kind of sorry for sending a nasty gram to an actually very sweet lady. I should have given her the benefit of the doubt, because she was probably having the kind of busy week I was having. After a very  informative conversation, she sent me 68 pages of daycare facilities in my area, which came to about 31 locations. She encouraged me to do my research on each one rather than just picking the one closest and most convenient to me. Being the crazy OCD individual that I am, I spent 3 hours narrowing my results down to 8 potential daycare facilities! My game plan consisted of the following....


  1. Google each facility.
  2. Read reviews from at least 3 different sites. (if no reviews found...pitch pile)
  3. Google Map facility. (Yes, I am that person who cares about what the appearance of the building looks like...judge away) You're not alone, my husband thinks I'm crazy too!
  4. Pitch the ones with tacky names...I'm only kidding, I'm not that shallow. I Just wanted to make sure I still had a captivated audience! :-) 
  5. Lastly and MOST IMPORTANT...CHECK THEIR LICENSE!!! 
I know it can be time consuming, but you will seriously not regret #5! The Department of Children and Families allows you to not only make sure the facilities are licensed, but you can read the public records of every routine and yearly renewal visits. It's important to be informed; especially when its involving your child's safety. I'm not a parent yet myself, but when I am one, I know I would want to know whether the daycare that I am entrusting with my child is background screening their employees every 5 years or using and properly storing cleaning products. Those are just a few violations I came across during my search.

Well that about does it. Enjoy your weekend! :-)

2 comments:

  1. You're so on the ball, Nomes! Can't wait to see what happens next :)

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  2. PS--See my latest blog entry for an award I gave you <3

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