My Special Needs Daycare Solutions
Submitted by Lauren Agoratus
After trying different forms of care for my child, the one that worked the best for us was in-home daycare. This could be either in a licensed daycare provider home or someone coming to my home. My daughter, Stephanie, is medically fragile due to kidney disease and was homebound the first five years. We had some success with bringing her to someone’s home, but since there were two other children there, she still got sick. With the doctors’ blessings, we then started in-home, one-on-one care, which worked. We used the Human Resources at my husband’s job. They referred us to a local agency that located chilcare providers. We also looked on our own. (For more on our search, see EP Feb. 1996). We put ads in the paper but initially scared off people with the phrases “special education/ medical experience.” We reworded the ads and got a great response using “education or healthcare experience.” This would include, of course, special education, and since many healthcare workers also do childcare, we would get someone with the same qualifications.
Tara Robinson initially worked full-time with Stephanie before school age. Tara had done speech therapy work. She had a special diapering procedure recommended by Children’s Hospital on which Tara was trained. Stephanie was potty-trained at age 5 (typical for children with renal disease) and Tara was taught a new procedure. Between her general special needs knowledge, speech work, and experience in the autism field, it seems that Tara was specially sent to us!
