Every parent has felt the stress caused by even the smallest shift in a routine. From emergency hospital visits to forgotten school-institute days, disruptions can be a frustrating yet natural part of a caregiver's life. Drop-in child care serves parents who need last-minute care for their child. 

As the demand for child care and drop-in services grow, child care businesses need to keep up. This guide will help you set up a successful drop-in child care service with effective scheduling, welcoming spaces, and clear communication. We’ll also guide you through how Playground’s all-in-one management system can help you put drop-in care management on autopilot. 

Let’s start with this question: what is drop-in child care?

What is drop-in child care?

Drop-in child care is a service that may be offered by a daycare to provide immediate, flexible, and short-term services for parents who need part-time or occasional child care. If a parent has an unexpected engagement and needs child care right away, drop-in child care is a helpful option. 

How does a drop-in child care center work?

Essentially, a drop-in center works like this. A parent drops their child off at the center, the child stays as long as needed participating in scheduled activities with other children, and then the parent picks up their child when they’ve scheduled to.

Because drop-in centers are designed for parents to schedule as needed, the registration process should start in advance of the parents’ need for the service. Quick and easy scheduling lets parents confirm the center’s availability for the time that the service is needed. 

Licenses required by drop-in centers can vary among states; check your state’s child care agency to get your drop-in service licensed. 

Drop-in care vs. back-up care

You may have heard of back-up care and wonder what the difference is between that and drop-in care. While drop-in services allow parents to find temporary care for their child, back-up care is a benefit typically provided through a parent’s employer. Depending on the program, back-up care is priced at different costs, with some added advantages of offering services at specific centers or within the child’s home.  

Why is drop-in child care important?

Drop-in child care gives parents more flexibility, provides children with safe and inclusive spaces, and increases a sense of safety and belonging among families. Parents can rest assured that their child has a reliable environment for future needs and emergencies. 

For parents who do not require daily and frequent services, drop-in child care can be a more cost-effective tool than other alternatives, such as babysitting or full-time child care. 

Benefits of drop-in child care for your business

Increases enrollment while optimizing capacity

For many families, having a consistent daycare center for their child isn’t necessary, but your value can become being the center to go to when they need it. Thus, you can enroll families you otherwise wouldn’t by implementing drop-in care into your business. Plus, it’s much easier to slot in drop-ins than finding a permanent spot for the same child in your regularly scheduled programming. 

When you use a child care management platform like Playground, drop-in child care capabilities are built-in. You can automatically enroll new parents without having to manually schedule, collect payment, or chase down paperwork. Playground also updates classroom availability, showing or hiding slots, to stay in compliance with ratios and capacities.

Boosts revenue without added costs

With more enrollment comes more revenue for your center, but here’s the nice thing. While drop-in care with Playground can positively impact your revenue, it does so at no additional cost. Plus, there are opportunities to optimize the space you have.

Here’s an example. Let’s say a family pays for a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday slot but are on vacation for a week. The slot is paid for, but they’re absent, meaning you can let another family book those slots during that specific week. This increases revenue with worrying about capacity or staffing issues.

Gives your center a competitive edge

Another obvious benefit is that you may be implementing drop-in care while your competitors aren’t. If a parent has an emergency and needs to find a center with drop-in services, you’ll be able to offer that over your competitors. That’s business you’re gaining over your competition, and you can use that opportunity to create loyal customers. Drop-in child care basically acts as a value-add for your business.

How to effectively run a drop-in child care program

Automate your entire drop-in care process

One concern you may have when implementing drop-in child care is managing availability and slots for a sudden increase in potential customers. Luckily, with all-in-one childcare management software, you can automate this process with ease. 

Playground automatically makes slots available if your facility has the capacity, and collects payment from the family up front. Once a family selects the slot, it’s hidden from other families. Slots can be set up to bill by the hour or day—it’s up to you. You may even choose to add a premium for flexible scheduling.

It’s easy to start drop-in care with Playground. You can add drop-in options to dates and times you have available, even selecting when this availability ends. Once these slots are established, Playground will handle the rest. See more about how to set up drop-in availability here. 

Describe your drop-in child care services on your website

One of the greatest ways to promote a drop-in child care service is on your website, which functions as your business’s home base for pertinent information. There, you should describe your drop-in child care services for parents, including the process and kinds of activities you offer. You may even include pictures and testimonials from real drop-in care participants.

Keep the information visible and simple, just like the drop-in service itself. This can help increase your enrollment and reduce the anxiety a parent might have during an already stressful time.

Develop structured activities focused on interaction

At their core, daycares are meant for children to engage in a safe environment. For children in a drop-in service, anxiety can be high, especially if the child is there because of an emergency circumstance. Give children the opportunity to engage in interaction with one another to help build a stronger daycare experience that builds their confidence and fulfills their need for play, exploration, and connection with peers.

However, you may also want to have a quiet space for children to go to when they’re overwhelmed. Even adults can get overstimulated when there are too many others around interacting at the same time, so give them an area to decompress before encouraging them to join in on activities again.

Create a quick, seamless enrollment process

The simpler your layout for enrollment, the more likely it will be for parents to use your drop-in service. The online enrollment process makes collecting paperwork and billing more intuitive, simplifying the process and creating fewer barriers between the service and parents who need it. 

Make enrollment easy for parents with Playground’s built-in features. 

Offer self-check-in for families

Check-ins are required for daycare facilities, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy. Parents are in a rush, and childcare staff can be busy tending to the needs of the many children at once. Self-check-in lets families check their children in without the flurry of physical check-in lines. It also supports easy attendance record-keeping. 

Digital attendance can smoothen the check-in process for parents and staff. 

Provide snacks and meals to children if needed

It’s essential to provide a safe and healthy environment for children in drop-in daycare. Besides allowing them the chance to interact, play, explore, and learn, serving children snacks and meals lets them feel sustained, energized, and at home. Some may be joining you for lunchtime or dinner, so you must offer meals to children staying for those periods.

Given the spontaneity of the parent’s schedule and the child’s potential unease, food can create a more hospitable environment for the community. Plus, it can help knock the snack-packing item off the parent’s overlong to-do list. 

Playground’s software provides easy ways for your drop-in service to plan and record meals and send out CACFP reports for those who qualify. 

Offering drop-in child care? Playground can help

The priority of drop-in child care is to make care accessible during even the most chaotic parts of a parent’s schedule. Any way that your system can be simplified supports the parents, children, and program as a whole. 

To support your community’s families and build a strong drop-in child care program, start with Playground’s many features to simplify the management process, available on mobile, tablet, and desktop. Try out a demo today!