Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Hi - I am in Wellington (Lower Hutt) with Husband and two boys (13 and 6 years). We are currently on work visas (3 Years), but applying for perm. res. this year. I have always worked in accounts, but really fancy childminding on a full time basis. Does anyone know if I need to be registered, and if so how do I go about it? I can't seem to find any req's. on the net, even though I've registrered with a couple of agencies - they havn't requested any reg. details. I have my police check cert. and good refferences, but nothing else!

Any advice would be warmly received - thanks! x :confused:

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Maybe try having a chat with Plunkett??

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Soph, get in touch with PORSE or Barnados, both in the yellow pages. Joe goes to a PORSE childminder at the moment and there is a real shortage of childcarers at the moment (at least over our way). I think Barnados give you money to set up, PORSE don't. Also they are a good option for families as families can access EEC throuh both(government subsidies). If you want more info give me a ring - I'm sure Joe's childminder would have a chat with you.
Wish you lived nearer:( My childminder has gone part time so I'm having to change Joe's childcare.

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Where abouts in Lower Hutt are you? We are in central Lower Hutt. Have 2 kids - 5 year old girl and 2 year old boy. Not the answer to your question I know!

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Google "home based childcare" and you should come up with some agencies that run this. Most will train you on the job, pay for you to take a 1st Aid cert and help with child placements, offer support, organise coffee mornings/outing etc, etc.

PORSE and Banardos are two of the largest, but there are other smaller agencies from town to town.

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Don't expect to earn much though..............:ohmy:
Home-based care is pretty cheap here and that's because the caregiver is paid very little indeed - even by Kiwi standards.

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Ah, but because the home is now classed as a workplace, you can expect to only pay $5 tax out of every $100 earned. Makes for more money in your back pocket instead of the tax man. Therefore, someone with three fulltime children (50 hours a week) in their charge could earn a modest salary in the region of $2,400 net a month.

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

I was a Registered Childminder in the UK for 5 years before coming out here last year. I was going to get back into it but the pay really is appalling!!! You also have to be a Permanent Resident before you can go into Childcare here. Porse won't take anyone on without Residency but you can train to Level 3 with them for between $200-300 and I'm not sure about Barnados but give them a call and find out for yourself how it is.

www.porsenz.com

www.barnardos.org.nz


Good Luck x

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

How do we get to the 5% tax/ACC levy by working from home? I'd be quite interested in that.........and to meet your accountant ;)
By the by, as we pay $4.5/hr for Barnardos there is a maximum of say $4 a child-hour for the caregiver. You've gotta be pretty well organised to get all of those spaces filled - most care-givers I know have nowhere near 150 child-hours per week filled, both of the two we had our kids with had about 60 - 80% take-up when they were busiest (based on a 50 hour week!), plus they often have their own kids and sometimes have to place them in childcare to fit in with their "full-timers".
The up-side I suppose is that the care-giver will attract their own benefits from the state in form of tax credits, etc, so if you have your own kids to look after and can live with it then a couple more for a few days a week will make some extra dough - but $30k net a year is pushing it for most people. In fact that is approaching what I was taking home on a $60k salary.

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Hmm, well, I've never earned anywhere near $60K salary :p , but in any case, this is a quote from JeMMa's Family Day Care Service.

So I guess you pay your own ACC levies, but that's still going to be cheaper than 20% income tax??

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Yes, it would seem so - from the ways things are panning out I am unlikely ever to make $60k again............its raining heavily now so no more mowing for me today :(
Just "real" (but none-remunerative :thumbdown: ) work - forms to fill, people to call and other business-type stuff to sort out!

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

suppose in the case of my two "angels" the legitimate additional costs of working the educarer could claim would include:

hair replacement therapy for all the hair they (and the little-ie) will tear out
prozac/valllium
osteopath treatment for back injuries caused by child struggling when picked up
increased health insurance premiums
replacement of broken toys/ornaments/wall finishings
sound-proofing costs for playroom
cleaning bills for carpets walls etc
etc
etc
:lol:

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Take it from an experienced Childcarer, these are only the tip of the iceberg :lol::lol::lol:

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

I wondered why you had the limp and that "odd tick".......
BTW, Lisa has sent the form today - hope you had a decent break, at football on Sunday I almost broke my arm (havent plucked up courage to go and get it x-rayed but there is very little pain just a fair bit of swelling! - could be hairline??)
Oddly enough I have only ever broken bones at football - two toes in 5-a-side and a bone in my right hand when I punched one of my team-mates, greenstick as I was about 14!
Tell Carl he needs to be on his guard!
Shameful to admit it but this one was slipping on the clubhouse stairs after half a bottle of Stella......wot a lightweight! :ohmy:

Re: Any advice on a Child Minding career??
 

Oooh please thank Lisa for me :thumbsup:

Also, I nearly slipped down those steps the other week, they're lethal !!! Should have a trampoline at the bottom :lol:

Had a fantastic break thankyou, we loved it and had a fantabulous time - can't wait to go back! I highly recommend it :thumbsup: