Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about Church-Sponsored Childcare
1. Who arranges for child care at UUCSS events?
Child care during Sunday worship services are arranged by the Children and Youth Religious Education Committee.
Child care during selected other events is arranged by the Child Care Committee in most cases (see below).
2. At what kind of events is child care provided and arranged by the Child Care Committee?
What are the criteria for engaging the Child Care Committee’s services?
At a minimum, the Child Care Committee arranges child care for the following events:
· Suite Treat (February, Friday or Saturday evening)
· New Member Reception (March, weekday evening)
· Auction (April, Saturday evening)
· Budget Meeting(s) (September-October, Sunday afternoon after the service)
· Fellowship Dinner (November, Saturday evening)
· Annual Meeting (December, Sunday afternoon after the service)
· Inquirers’ Luncheons (quarterly throughout the year, Sunday afternoon after the service)
The Child Care Committee will arrange child care for events not on the list above solely at its discretion.
The Child Care Committee is not responsible for arranging child care for the following types of events:
· Events that involve only a subset of group members, such as a committee meeting or Families-LUUV meeting.
· Events that take place at the church but are not sponsored by UUCSS, such as Institute of Musical Tradition Concerts
and private wedding and memorial services. (People involved in the hosting of these events are welcome to arrange
on-site child care themselves. The Child Care Committee can be of assistance by giving advice on how to do this.)
· Events that are publicized as “Child care will be provided” without first contacting the Child Care Committee.
3. My group will be organizing an all-church event that will require childcare. What’s the process for arranging child care?
Step 1: Appoint an event organizer contact person (aka liaison to the CCC). This person will serve as a liaison between the group hosting the event and the Child Care Committee. This person must be empowered to affect publicity about the event.
Step 2: Have the event organizer contact person contact the Child Care Committee, communicating the date, time, duration, and nature of the event, and an estimate of how many children are expected. If this is a new event, not a recurring one, it’s OK not to have an estimate of how many children are expected. An estimate of how many adults are expected will suffice. There is no such thing as too much advanced notice.
Step 3: Have the event organizer contact person work with the Child Care Committee to answer the following questions:
· How and to whom should parents RSVP, i.e., should parents RSVP to the Child Care Committee (childcare@uucss.org), the event organizers, or both? Please note that ALL RSVPs must ultimately be submitted via e-mail; if your group chooses to collect them in person, please be sure to e-mail your collected list to this address.
· What is the deadline for RSVPs? Typically, the deadline is one week prior to the event.
· How will the RSVP requirement be publicized? The mechanism for RSVPing and the deadline for doing so must be included in all event publicity. For example, “Child care will be provided. RSVP to childcare@uucss.org no later than one week prior to the event.”
· What information do parents need to include in the RSVP, i.e., names and ages of all children who will require child care, any special needs.
· Where will child care for the event take place? Usually, child care is provided in the UUCSS Toddler Room and/or the outdoor playground if weather permits. Even if the weather is expected to be great, an indoor child care space is still required if extremely young children (i.e., under 2 years old) will need care. Also, events that have an unusually large number of children, such as the Auction, may require using the 3’s and 4’s Room as well. The initial child care location – most often the UUCSS Toddler Room – needs to be communicated to parents at the time they RSVP.
· Does the event happen during a mealtime? If so, what arrangements must be made for feeding children? If the event spans 12:00 noon (lunch) or 6:30pm (dinner) parents must either feed their children prior to dropping them off for child care or bring the children’s food with them. This information needs to be communicated to parents when they RSVP.
Due to allergies of children who use the church facilities as part of the Silver Spring Nursery School during the week, the UUCSS Toddler Room and 3’s and 4’s Rooms are peanut-free classrooms. Parents may not send foods containing peanuts for their children’s meals or snacks. This information needs to be communicated to parents when they RSVP.
· Is the child care period long enough to require entertainment in the form of a video, i.e., usually four hours? If so, who will bring age-appropriate videos and who will get UUCSS’ ancient VCR/TV system out of its locked storage and set it up?
· How many child care providers will be needed? The Child Care Committee will determine this number, based on the number of children expected. Church policy (recently revised) requires the maximum ratio of young children to child care providers to be 6:1, the minimum to be 2:1, with a recommended ratio of 4:1.
· How much will the child care providers be paid, how will they be paid, who will pay them? When members of the UUCSS Babysitting Coop provide child care for church events, they are paid by the Coop Recordkeeper in coop tickets. However, if either of these no-cost options are either not available or don’t produce enough unpaid child care providers, paid child care providers will have to be found. These child care providers are typically paid $12 per hour, regardless of age or experience, i.e., there is no “senior child care provider” position who is paid more and teenagers are paid the same rate as adults. It is courteous to round up to the nearest $10, i.e, paying $36 for three hours and then rounding up to $40.
Paid child care providers must be paid in cash from donations at the end of the event. The event organizer contact person should put this cash in individual envelopes, marked with the name of each paid child care provider, and distribute these envelopes at the end of the event. If the event organizer contact person is not able to distribute the envelopes him or herself, the contact person is responsible to find someone else (such as the on-site coordinator) to do so.
The funds to pay child care providers must be collected by the UUCSS group that is organizing the event.
· Who will pay for snacks, drinks and other supplies? Typically, these items are paid for out of the budget of the UUCSS group that is organizing the event.
· Who will be the on-site child care coordinator? This person has a number of important duties on the day of the event, as described in the following Q&A. It is the responsibility of the event organizer contact person to find a on-site child care coordinator.
Step 4: After the RSVP deadline but before the event, the Child Care Committee will notify the event organizer contact person the names of all child care providers, whether they will need to be paid, and whether they need a ride home following the event.
- Many of UUCSS’ best child care providers do not have a car. They typically take the bus to the church for evening events, but need a ride home if the event ends past 9:00pm. If any of the child care providers need a ride home after the event, the Child Care Committee will notify the event organizer contact of this fact and where the child care provider(s) lives. The event organizer contact person is responsible for finding rides for all people who need them prior to the event. A simple e-mail message to the UUCSS list serv usually is sufficient to match those who need a ride with those willing to provide them. Once rides are found, the event organizer contact person must ask the persons providing the rides to come to the child care area at the start of the event in order to introduce themselves to the person to whom they will be giving a ride.
- Contact the on-site child care coordinator to let them know which church members are providing rides home to which child care providers.
If RSVPs are much greater than the initial estimate, the Child Care Committee is responsible for finding additional child care providers to maintain the maximum young child to child care provider ratio of 6:1.
Step 5: On the day of the event, focus on your event, not the child care. If the previous steps have been followed, then on the day of the event, the on-site child care coordinator, and the child care providers themselves should do most of the work. The only exception is to ensure that the child care providers are paid. The child care providers will be informed that they should on-site child care coordinator – not the event organizers – if any issues arise.
Step 6: Following the event, give feedback to the Child Care Committee about how things went. For example, were there too many child care providers or too few? Was one of the child care providers particularly good, or not? Were there enough snacks? Were the videos age-appropriate? Was the on-site child care coordinator able to find the TV/VCR system, the lights, the heat, and/or the A/C? The Child Care Committee depends on this feedback to continually improve child care for church events.
5. What are the responsibilities of the On-Site Child Care Coordinator? Who can fill this role?
The on-site child care coordinator is the church member who is responsible for ensuring that the child care goes smoothly during the actual event. This person can be a member of the Child Care Committee, a parent who knows this information already, a member of the UUCSS group organizing the event, or even a child care provider (for example, when the child care provider is also a UUCSS parent). The on-site child care coordinator should not be a person with major responsibilities for organizing the overall event, as this role involves being with the children at the beginning and end of the start of the event, and being “on-call” during it.
The on-site child care coordinator ’s responsibilities include:
- Bringing the following items:
· The final compiled list of RSVPs (will be provided by the CCC).
· A sign-in sheet
· Masking tape for writing name tags for children and for children’s bags
· Ball point pens for the sign-in sheet and masking tape
· Nutritious non-sugary snacks and drinks (Remember that the UUCSS Toddler Room and 3’s and 4’s Room are peanut-free classrooms, so no peanut-based snacks are allowed.)
· Napkins, cups, and plates
- Arriving 15 minutes prior to the start of the event to do the following tasks:
· Unlock the child care location
· Turn on lights, heat and/or A/C
· Greet child care providers and give them an “orientation” if they are not already familiar with the church (including the importance of thoroughly cleaning the space at the end of the event)
·Ensure that the providers know where and how to contact them if any issues arise. (Note that the on-site child care coordinator, not the event organizer, is responsible for handling any issues.)
·Introduce the child care provider(s) to the person(s) who will be giving them a ride home
· Receive children who arrive early, i.e. before the arrival of all child care providers
- During the event:
·Be “on call “ for the child care providers in case any issues arise
·If there are too many children for the number of providers, decide whether to locate more child care providers, or to turn away children whose parents did not RSVP
- At the end of the event:
·Ensure that the child care providers have cleaned the room adequately
·Ensure that all providers are matched with their rides home
·Locate any parents who may be late picking up their children, so that the providers can leave in a timely manner
This person may leave the child care location after the arrival and “orientation” (if necessary) of all child care providers. This person may then join the adult event if desired.
5. What if parents show up to a church event expecting care for children for whom they have not RSVP? Do we turn these children away?
Not necessarily. First, ask yourself if the need to RSVP and the mechanism for RSVPing was clearly communicated in the publicity for the event. If not, it’s important to cut parents a little slack.
At most events there are a few children for whom no RSVP was made. In addition, at most events there are a few children for whom an RSVP was made but who fail to show up. Often these numbers balance out and the desired child to child care provider ratio is maintained.
A child should only be turned away when the addition of that child exceeds the child to child care provider ratio of 6:1. This is one of the reasons that the preferred ratio is 4:1, to accommodate the addition of unexpected children. The on-site child care coordinator is responsible to either locate more care providers or else decide to turn children away.
6. What is the payment rate in coop tickets for members of the UUCSS Babysitting Coop who provide child care for church events?
1 hour – 25 tickets
2 hours – 35 tickets
3 hours – 45 tickets
4 hours – 55 tickets
5 hours – 65 tickets
6 hours – 75 tickets
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