[Suz_LA]

Hello, my husband and I are going through certification classes in Los Angeles, and I was curious about a resource for DCFS-approved day care providers.

We live in CA without family who can serve as back-up babysitters. Thankfully I work from home and our moms, who live out of state, want to take classes and perhaps get on our approved babysitter list. However, I want to be prepared if I need to quickly attend meeting or perhaps have one day per week where I am able to attend onsite client meetings.

Any assistance you can provide in finding a resource for approved daycare providers would be appreciated. I've tried searching online and in these forums with no luck yet.

Thanks so much!

[Longing2bMom]

I'm also in the process of getting certified in California and we were told in our classes that California has a "prudent parent law" that allows you to use any babysitter you want without any special approval, background checks, classes, etc. so long as it is for less than 24 hours. Of course, you would still want to do the necessary due diligence to make yourself feel safe in leaving them with this person, but unless Los Angeles has more stricter rules than the state, I don't think there are any special requirements for occassional babysitters.

I looked the law up online at here's what I found:

Senate Bill 358

Under Senate Bill 358 foster parents can use their own “prudent parent” judgment to decide who can baby-sit their foster children for periods of less than 24 hours. There are no longer any requirements that sitters have health screenings, take CPR and first aid and have criminal background checks. The new law affects both county-licensed and private foster family agency (FFA) foster parents in California.

Source:
Foster Parent Legal Resource Center

[Suz_LA]

Thanks so much, Longing2bMom! I'm going to print this out and bring it to my next class.

We're using an agency to guide us thru the process and it was our SW who told us that the agency requires a list of approved babysitters and we could only use approved day care centers. This makes things so much easier, as we have people we love and trust (friends), but asking them to go through classes to get certified just to babysit for us in a pinch is something we feel like is a major imposition. One is even a nurse.

[Longing2bMom]

Did she really say they had to go through classes? That would be a real pain and imposition! Here were I live (Sacramento), even before the "prudent parent law", babysitters only had to be fingerprinted and have a background check. I guess your agency could have rules that are more stricter than the state, but to require classes seems to be taking it to extremes. Hopefully, she's just confused!

[excited2adoptsoon]

Suz...I'm in LA too. My agency said the exact same thing...maybe we're at the same agency??...feel free to PM me.

I've had a real hard time with my agency on this particular rule. I have someone who got "certified" as my babysitter and now we're almost at a year later and they want her to go through the CPR and first aid classes again, and some other requirements that are a fairly big inconvenience (oh and she's already a nurse!). The fingerprinted that they required of her was over $100. She had to complete very personal forms that she had to give to me and I had to forward to agency, and it was a little awkward. ...stuff that had her weight, and other sensitive medical stuff.

As far as daycare, the only requirement is that they are LA County licensed. There's a website that you can search for LA county licensed daycares ...if I find it, I'll come back and post.

In my opinion, if you have nobody close to certify as a babysitter, I'd see if you can somehow connect with another fosterparent that may be willing to take that on. They would have all the requirements already so it would be a non-issue. Maybe your agency could help connect you to an experienced fostermom, or support group.

[excited2adoptsoon]

ok - here is the county website of licensed daycare providers: CCLD Facility Search Form

In the first drop down, change it to "child care center" or "infant center". You'll have a complete list of all qualified places in your area.

Just another thought - are you doing fost/adopt? If so, I hope they stressed the possibility of family visits. I know it was discussed in our classes but I never realized it would be as intense as it was. We had mandatory visits twice weekly and that could have lasted a year (we got lucky and I guess and it only lasted 6 months). We were required to drive the baby to and from all of these visits. We'd have to drop her off for two hours and just hang outside or go shopping in the area and then come back and get her. On top of that, we had our agency visits twice monthly and our county worker visit once monthly. We had dr. visits about twice monthly in the beginning as well. There were other scheduled appointments too that I'm sure are not coming to my mind right now. I hope it doesn't scare you at all because it's all worth it in the end, but I never realized that being a fosterparent would be a full time job on top of caring for the child while working at the same time!

again, well well worth it in the end!

[Suz_LA]

excited2adoptsoon ... Yay & thank you. This link and info is so helpful and just what I was looking for. I've PMed you ... I'm so curious if we're using the same agency.