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Child-care providers enter the world of employment contracts
It's tough to find a trustworthy care giver for your child. Putting terms and conditions on paper can make it easier for all concerned.

It's hard for parents looking to hire a loving, responsible person to care for their young
ones to think of this as a legal and business transaction.

But a transaction is exactly what it is, as evidenced by the now-routine employment contracts used even among family child-care providers -- those who take children into their homes.

The warm and fuzzy part of the relationship is usually covered in a separate "policy" or "philosophy" statement, said Tom Copeland, an attorney and director of the Redleaf National Institute, a St. Paul-based resource agency for providers.

The contract, on the other hand, is all about down payments, holidays off, vacations and termination notices -- that is, everything to do with the providers' time and the parents' money, Copeland said.

It is a good development, especially in home-based care, part of a move over two decades to establish child care as a profession, he said.

There's usually room for some negotiation. But the contracts are legally binding, so parents must be clear what they're signing.

Terms vary a lot, but a typical contract could include such things as all federal holidays plus 10 more days -- usually personal or sick days off with pay. Vacation for the provider will be unpaid, but families must continue to pay the provider when they take their youngsters out for their vacations.

Basically, the contracts give child-care providers what most of their working clients get, Copeland said. If it sounds like a lot of time, remember the long hours and low pay on the days they do work, he said.

Some contracts demand too much, Deborah Strohmeyer said. Strohmeyer, of Bloomington, went back to work full time at a medical devices company this June, after staying home with her two sons for about 10 years.The contract she signed allowed for 10 floating days off, and sometimes short notice put her in a bind, she said.

Her biggest objection, though, was that the contract required her to pay for all 10 of those days even though her son was there just a few months. Copeland said prepayment conditions can be tricky. On one hand, there are parents who take their children out of care without the standard paid two weeks' notice.

"I get calls probably twice a week from providers saying, 'I just had a parent leave owing me money. How do I deal with that?' " he said.

On the other hand, Copeland understands that parents could worry about leaving their child two more weeks with someone they've essentially fired.

That's why, although it's hard, he recommends parents talk to their providers up front about exactly how all sides could handle it if things just don't work out. Copeland has another standard piece of advice.

"Usually the parent and the provider sign a contract, put it away, and never pull it out again until there's a problem," he said. "It's the parent who's going to be unfamiliar with it, because the provider wrote it. So I recommend they review it together at least once a year."

That doesn't happen often enough, he said; then disagreements come up, and the contract becomes the arbiter.

For information on contracts, as well as advice on finding quality child care in general, go to the Minnesota Child Care Resource & Referral Network at www.mnchildcare.org or
1-888-291-9811.