What do you do if Assistant is off?

**rosebud** · 17-05-2013, 11:07 AM

They're sick, their child is sick, they just don't turn up. You have 6 children (under 5) that need looking after and are now over your numbers. Any thoughts from people working with assistants - has this been a problem for you? Do you have a contingency plan in place? As you can tell I have lots of worries about taking this step!

**Kirstylob** · 17-05-2013, 12:00 PM

Sorry, no experience working with assistants. Hopefully someone will.come along soon who can help you.
Just wondered - has this actually happened or are you creating scenarios for yourself?

**noreenismail** · 17-05-2013, 12:08 PM

My husband is my back up assistant. If this ever happended then he would step in. All the children know him and love playing with him.

**rosebud** · 17-05-2013, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by Kirstylob

Sorry, no experience working with assistants. Hopefully someone will.come along soon who can help you.
Just wondered - has this actually happened or are you creating scenarios for yourself?

No am thinking of having an assistant and am trying to consider all possible scenarios before I make any commitments.

**hectors house** · 17-05-2013, 12:23 PM

Would you legally be able to have them all as continuity of care? Would 3 of the children be yours and 3 the assistants (I guess you would have to do this to allocate a key worker to each child), but are all 6 children technically "yours"? Don't know how you would choose which children to cancel to stay within your legal numbers or just to stay sane numbers - sorry I'm not much help, but hopefully someone who does use an assistant will be able to answer all the questions soon - as my daughter is registered as my assistant but only intend to use her in emergencies, but she is finishing A levels soon and I don't know whether to advertise for more children for Sept or not?

**sarak31** · 17-05-2013, 12:41 PM

I have employed assistants. If they are off you must adjust your numbers accordingly otherwise you are out of ratio. How you choose to adjust your numbers is up to you and would depend on what ages you had - you would need to go back to your own ratios and tell parents of the other children that you can't have them. I always thought about which parents would be least affected - eg if a parent ad just taken 2 weeks holiday from work and taking more time would be really hard I'd try to keep their child attending or if I knew another child had a gran that was always happy to e him I would ask them to keep him off etc. But if it's not that easy to make decisions I would always think of it in terms of who my best customers were and I'd want to keep them happy.

Having said that - you can put variations in place if you feel appropriate. So you would need to be able to show you have risk assessed the fact you are out of ratio and be able to demonstrate how you would cope with all the children On your own. You'd also need permission from all your parents to put the variation in place for that day. Remember that your variations in these cases need to be reasonable - so if you only have 4 children and the 4th child is a very independent 4 year old you could probably justify a variation for the day (with permission of all parents). If you have 2 six month olds, a 12 m old, 18 m old and two 2 year olds its pretty impossible to justify a variation without any risks on standard of care for all those children on your own.

I would always advise never to have just one assistant if you plan to increase your ratios. Two part timers are better than one full timer as they can cover each other when they are away for sickness or holidays. This also reduces the cost of employing for you as 2 part timers attract less employers tax than one full timer - makes it cheaper.

**judipoo** · 20-05-2013, 09:21 AM

I have had assistants for two years plus now. when I decided to go down the expansion route I decided to have part time asisstants - 2 who worked one day each initially , but cleared my neighbour who was a retired teacher to be emergency supply. She was available at short notice to cover holidays , sickness etc. Since then my business has expanded again. I am very careful in choosing people to work in my home and the process is a very slow one to guarantee I choose the right person an one way I do this is to have a new assistant working as supply for me for 6 months or so - also if I always have an assistant checked and trained in the wings it means that when a permanent one hands notice in etc I have another assistant ready and waiting.

**rosebud** · 23-05-2013, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by judipoo

I have had assistants for two years plus now. when I decided to go down the expansion route I decided to have part time asisstants - 2 who worked one day each initially , but cleared my neighbour who was a retired teacher to be emergency supply. She was available at short notice to cover holidays , sickness etc. Since then my business has expanded again. I am very careful in choosing people to work in my home and the process is a very slow one to guarantee I choose the right person an one way I do this is to have a new assistant working as supply for me for 6 months or so - also if I always have an assistant checked and trained in the wings it means that when a permanent one hands notice in etc I have another assistant ready and waiting.

Yes I have kind of been thinking this is a better route to go down than just one extra person. Thank you everyone for your very helpful replies.