Frisco Kidz at Play

Child Care Providers

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the release of the new CCL Reporting Form has been delayed until next week. The new release date that has been scheduled is April 5, 2009. Child Care Licensing apologizes for any inconvenience that this has caused. Our IT department is monitoring to determine if any reports were submitted in the last 24 hours and will ensure that anything submitted electronically was processed.

Thank you for your patience.

Department of Family and Protective Services
Child Care Licensing Division

Child Care Providers,

A new enhancement/feature to the Child Care Licensing Public Provider Website will be going live March 29, 2009.

This enhancement is expected to allow child-care providers to interact more easily with the Department of Family and Protective Services via the Internet: Once registered and logged-in to an account, providers will now be able to:

• Submit Serious Incident and Abuse/Neglect Reports for Child Care Licensing

This new technology feature will allow child-care providers to directly report abuse/neglect and serious incidents online that have occurred at child care operations via the current Public Provider Website.

This new online reporting tool will function very similarly to the current Child Protective Services/Adult Protective Services online reporting tool. As a child-care provider with a registered account on the Public Provider Website, your current provider login will allow access to a new link that will open a Child Care Licensing online report. This new report has been modified to more closely match the needs of a child care provider.

As always, Child Care Licensing, in collaboration with child-care providers, strives to improve the health, safety, and well-being of children, and technology is one tool to help us meet that goal. We hope this new reporting option will assist providers in their work and our mission to keep children safe.

Child Care Licensing

Spring is a great time of year where life begins anew. Trees are getting dressed in fresh green leaves, the ground is covered by a blanket of emerging plush grass, flowers are showing off their new bright colors, animals are waking up from a long winter’s nap, and the sun is shining longer and warmer.

But, in order for all these plants and trees to grow, the clouds will need to spill a lot of rain on our dry Earth. This can mean a lot of rainy days. That’s ok because I have a lot of Spring Preschool Activities to keep little ones busy wet, rainy days.

Use these activities as preschool lessons, to keep busy on a rainy day, or in your home child care with your preschoolers and toddlers. Both March and April activities feature a theme, color, number, 2 alphabet letters, shape, science and social studies activities, arts and crafts ideas, reading and language skills activities, imagination play ideas, math games, coordination and movement activities, and ideas to develop social skills.

March Preschool Activities

April Preschool Activities

Don’t forget to spend some time splashing around in the puddles after the rain!

03/02/2009 from Frisco Police Department

On Thursday, February 26, 2009, at approximately 11:00pm, Frisco Police responded to the 13000 Block of Plum Valley, Denton County TX. The officers were responding to a reported attempted child abduction. Upon arrival, officers were told by the three year old victim’s mother that she was packing the car for a family trip and had gone inside for a moment, leaving the three year old alone in the front yard. She stated she heard her daughter screaming and ran outside to see a male subject had her daughter by the wrist and was leading the child away from the house. She stated she chased after them and the man released the child and fled on foot. The area was searched and a police K-9 was called in to assist but the suspect was not located. The child did not sustain any injuries. The suspect is described as a male, approximately 6′ tall, with dark hair, wearing a black shirt, blue jeans, and white shoes.

Frisco Police are asking anyone with information regarding this attempted abduction of a child to call the Frisco Police Department at 972-292-6010.

This offense is still under investigation. No further information will be released at this time.

This information was taken from Frisco Online and was too important not to re-post here.

A Listed Family Home is an in-home child care that provides regular care to 3 or fewer unrelated children in the providers own home. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Office of Child Care Licensing, requires these providers to obtain a listing certificate. In addition, the provider must submit a completed request for Criminal History and Central Registry Request Form for the provider and any resident of the home that is over the age of 14. This form must be submitted every 24 months in order to maintain the listing certificate.

The maximum number of children that a listed family home caregiver may provide care for is 12 which includes 3 unrelated children and 9 related children (own children, siblings, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, first cousins, nieces, and nephews). If care is to be provided for more than 12 children, the caregiver must register with the state which will require meeting additional standards and a different certificate.

To be a listed family home caregiver, the caregiver must be at least 18 years old, must remit the annual $20 listing fee, and obtain the listing certificate and present it upon request to any parent. Unlike registered or licensed in-home providers, listed family home caregivers are not subject to inspection. If parents choose to select this type of caregiver, they need to be aware that no inspections of the homes will be done to see if minimum standards are upheld or compliance is maintained.

It will the parent’s responsibility to ensure that proper care is provided and that there is no abuse or neglect taking place. If abuse or neglect is ever suspected, a complaint may be reported to the 24 hour toll-free hotline at 1-800-252-2400. A complaint investigator will be assigned to investigate the claim. Additionally, if the caregiver suspects that child has been abused or neglected outside of the child care environment, then the caregiver is required by Chapter 34 of the Family Texas Code to report the suspicion and make a claim for investigation.

One of the advantages of a listed family home is that the child to caregiver ratio is extremely low, allowing the caregiver to provide a lot of one on one attention throughout the day. This appeals to many parents who do not wish to have their child lost in the shuffle at a large day care center. However, the downside are that these types of child care homes are not inspected and may fail to comply with the minimum standards. However, as long as parents and providers work together, excellent care can be provided in these homes.

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Frisco Childcare Providers:

Shari Schauer has announced a meeting on Wednesday, March 25th at 7:00. A company will be there to discuss SIDS and Shaken Baby and proper brain development. The cost for all this is $15 and it will take 1 to 1 1/2 hours to cover it all. Any Frisco Childcare Providers that haven’t paid dues yet can pay them at the meeting. Please let Shari know ASAP if you will be attending this class!

Shari has also provided information on the Texas Professional Home Child Care Association, (TPHCCA). They have workshops throughout the year and a Conference in September which is in Houston this year. To join you can go to TPHCCA. This is a great way to earn your clock hours. It is $40.00 to join for the year. After you join, you can get into all the workshops for free. Also they send you a quarterly flyer. If you read the 4 or 5 page flyer, on the back you can tear off a section which will give you 2 clock hour. If you do this every quarter that is 8 clock hours you can earn every year.

One of the workshops that Shari and others will go to will be Region 5W in Garland and Region 5E which will be in Lewisville this year.
Shari highly recommends that you go to both workshops and check it out, you will be glad you did because it is a great way to get all your hours for the year.

If you have any questions please feel free to call Shari at 972-712-3836.

Shari Schauer
Frisco Home Childcare Association (Connecting Frisco Childcare Providers with families seeking childcare)

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