Don't know where to start or what to do.

[diddldonna]

Hi I am looking for some advice from other childminders and have many questions.

I am currently working as a nursery practitioner team leader, I have nvq 3 early years qualification and working towards a foundation degree in early years through open university. I this week found out the nursery I am working at is likely to close at end of January, I have been there over 6 years, before that I was a childminder.

Now my questions are:

Would I have to go to pre registration childminding meeting and do the childminding course when I did this 8 years ago?

How do I get registered, it all looks so different now.

Anyone know if there is a step by step process.

How long is registration likely to take.

Is childminding used more these days as 6-8 years ago things were are little quiet.

Any help would be great, thank you.

[francinejayne]

You would have to contact your LA and go through their cm registration process, which nowadays means doing all the required training before you send off to Ofsted. It can take about 6 months I believe.

I guess with regards to how quiet or busy things are depends on the area you are in, and things change so much. If you had asked me 2 months ago how things were for me then I would have said I hadn't had any enquiries for 6 months - however over the past 2 months I have been inundated with enquiries, I am completely full every day of the week and I have turned away so much business, yet my friend that lives 3 miles away has had no enquiries - I guess they are like buses!

[bunyip]

I agree with francinejayne. Your LA has to be the first point of enquiry. Each LA has it's own way of doing things and everything changes so quickly.

I've not been registered a year, yet when I talk with people going through pre-reg now, the courses and processes are very different to what I did.

IME, demand for childcare varies enormously over time and distance. I've not had one serious full-time request, but I know of localities nearby where parents are desperate for CMs. A lot depends on what's around you. eg. A big local hospital might create a 'niche' of parents seeking shift cover or overnight care. A lot more people seem to be working part-time or unsociable hours these days, so you may need to be flexible. We may be self-employed, but that doesn't make us immune from the knock-on effect of nasty employers scr:censored:ing their workers.

One thing to be wary of (learn from my mistake) is becoming over-optimistic about a perceived huge demand for CMs. When I was pre-reg I had countless mums in my community saying how good it was that I'd be registered, because the place desperately needed more CMs. It didn't mean they were queueing up to use me or any of the other CMs here. I suspect they might've just been hoping for an over-supply of CMs in order to drive the fees down. Oh well, I guess Ms Truss will fulfil their wishes one day. :( (Rant end.)