Starting a Daycare: Considering Community Needs
If you\’re thinking of starting a daycare service, one of the first steps is to assess the need for childcare services in your local community. You can do this in a number of ways, from talking with nearby families to analyzing census demographic data. You can begin your evaluation by connecting with families in your local community about their childcare requirements and characteristics they would look for in a childcare business. This may be done by meeting with families, creating a questionnaire which people can complete via mail, or through administering a telephone survey.
Another excellent way to determine the need for daycare services in your community is to study local census data for your city or town. You can look at demographic information such as number of families with youngsters ages 0-6 years, number of recent marriages, and the geographic concentrations of families. This data can be found through getting in touch with your nearby city or town hall, or the U.S. Census Bureau. You may be able to search for the data online through the U.S. Census Bureau\’s site.You can use the census data to determine the prevailing need for childcare in your town or city, as well as predict if the requirements for childcare will increase in the near future.
A crucial step in this evaluation process is getting in touch with your local childcare resource and referral agency to help in identifying existing daycare companies in your town or city. You can then learn some more about the competition, and what types of services and care they\’re providing to families locally. You will have to develop a original strategy for your own day care service, such as offering more flexible hours, providing services for different age groups, or creating an after-school childcare service for older kids.
Before you contact your local child care resource and referral agency, draft a list of questions you want to ask about day care services in your neighborhood. These can include questions about hours, types of care, ages of kids in care, services competitors provide, and the number of daycare centers that are in close proximity to your location.
It is very important for you to assess the needs for daycare in your city or town prior to starting your company. This is going to help you to set a few clear goals for your business plan, and get a leg up on your competition through providing niche services.
Jennifer Dilwortz is a writer for Childcare Training Info, the most complete childcare training resource online. This article on assessing community needs for childcare is a part of our series on starting up a daycare business.