Childminders’ homes are generally very safe places because it is part of our job to ensure that we have risk-assessed and safety-proofed our homes. Unfortunately it is impossible to control everything and everyone in our homes at all times. Therefore it is important to teach young children what to do if they come across a situation or object that could cause an accident. Tiny Lego choke hazards end up in the babies’ crawl spaces, cleaning products get forgotten, friends without toddlers visit and put their mugs of tea on the coffee table or forget to shut stair gates behind them. Situations with the potential to cause accidents will happen to every childminder, no matter how vigilant you are, because it is impossible to control everything and everyone within your home environment.
Teaching older children how to help you will make your job easier. When older children come across a dangerous item, you want them to recognise it, know that it is not a toy, and know that you will reward them if they report the situation to you. If there is any risk in your house for example that a child will ever come across matches, they need to recognise them so that if they ever find one by mistake they know that it is dangerous. The same goes for scissors, knives, mugs of tea, trailing cables, slip hazards, laundry pouches (eye damage risk), cleaning products, open stair gates etc.
The key message you want to tell children is this: If you find a dangerous item, tell a grown up straight away. If you reward a child with lots of praise and encouragement they will take great delight in helping you to spot risks and help you to prevent accidents before they happen. Older children can be a helpful set of extra eyes!
One really important area of safety that childminders can be complacent about is fire safety. There is no point fitting smoke detectors if you don’t regularly test they are working. You also need to hold regular fire drills, at different times of the day and with different children present. In the event of your smoke alarm going off, you and every child needs to know what to do every time.
Out and about with young children you need to think about road safety and sun safety. It is also important to discuss with children what they should do if they ever find themselves lost. Stranger danger is another important consideration, and this article has lots of practical tips for discussing strangers with young children.
Be Safe Be Health MEGA Pack
As a childminder you have a choice about what activities you do with the children you look after so why not do some topics that could really make a difference to their lives? Taking the time to explore topics like healthy eating, making friends, sun safety, oral health, fire and road safety will not only really help the children, but it will make you feel that you are doing something truly valuable with the time you are spending with them.
This pack is a collection of 14 mini printable packs with resources to help childminders to teach 14 health and safety topics to 2-5 year old children.
Contracts, Policies and Forms Pack
Having a clear and robust contract and policies is vital to the smooth running of any childminding business and can help prevent unwanted situations and misunderstandings between parent(s)/guardian(s) and childminders.
This pack contains a fully updated* contract, complemented and reinforced by specially written policies. Also included are lots of useful forms for you to use in your business as well as information about the sort of paperwork you will need.
There is no need to buy repeated contracts. You can print the contracts in this pack as many times as you need.
