Want To Create An In-Home Child Care Center For Special Needs Kids? Three Things You Will Need First
Posted on: 6 July 2016
Child care for special needs children is in high demand. It is difficult to find a child care center that can accommodate physical challenges as well as cognitive, behavioral, mental and emotional ones as well. If you have decided that you want to answer this specific calling and help out parents with special needs children by providing a daycare service in your home, here are a few things you will need to do or have first.
Widened Doorways
Despite the smaller size of a child's wheelchair, it still needs a lot more doorway clearance than most homes have. If you are going to offer your child care services regardless of physical challenges and limitations, you will need to make sure that every doorway in your home is appropriately widened (or at least the doorways that are necessary for providing care, e.g., bathroom and kitchen doorways). This will require hiring a construction contractor to remodel all of the doorways that cannot currently accommodate a child's wheelchair. If you can, build the estimates and business expenses for this home remodeling into your business plan for any startup loans you request from banks and lenders.
Grab Bars
Grab bars provide children with the means to pull themselves up, pull themselves along a hallway when they are in a wheelchair, support themselves when they have trouble walking or standing, and transition and/or pivot onto the toilet for toileting needs. These grab bars will need to go in the bathroom around the toilet, down any stretch of hallway on the first floor of your home, and possibly in the living room or kitchen as needed for transfers to other furniture. While you are not operating a group home or community-based residential facility (CBRF) for these children, the handbook for safety measures an construction of these facilities can also help you figure out where to put other assistive devices of this sort.
Adaptive Devices for Meal Times
Finally, you will need adaptive devices for meal times. This may include trays that fit onto wheelchairs, chairs that lock onto the edge of a table (for babies and toddlers who cannot sit up), cups, plates and utensils made for special needs children, and even long bibs. Sometimes parents provide these items, if they have some spares at home, but it is best that you have some of these on hand too. Most of these devices may be purchased through an educational equipment and supplies store.
For more information, contact professionals like Learning Tree Schools.
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