All Our Kin

All Our Kin (AOK) Virtual Business Series is designed to support adult learners to have positive and successful learning experiences, so they leave with the knowledge and relationships to sustain and grow their family child care business. It is a ten-week series designed to cover eight key aspects of running a family child care business including marketing, contracts, time-space percentage, recordkeeping and more! Each week there will be two hours of large group class time, one hour of a learning lab with other child care home providers to practice the new skills learned in class and 30 minutes of self-study work to complete in between classes.

View training dates for online sessions here.

Training Credit

33 hours upon completion of online professional development

Training Audience

Child Development Homes (CDH)
Child Care Homes (CCH) accepting Child Care Assistance (CCA)
Child Care Homes (CCH)

i-PoWeR Professional Workforce Registry

Iowa's Early Childhood and School Age Professional Workforce Registry (i-PoWeR) is a comprehensive registry where you can find and enroll in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) approved professional development opportunities related to early childhood and school-age professionals. It will also maintain a record of your professional achievements. Approved training opportunities can be accessed by visiting i-PoWeR below.

i-PoWeR Link

Training Narrative

Session 1: Introduction to the Business Series

Participants will practice using technology, introduce themselves to each other and participate in a team-building icebreaker. The instructor will then review the learning objectives and logistics of the business series, before leading a brainstorm of classroom agreements. Participants will break out into groups to develop a personal goal for participation in the series.

Session 2: Marketing Your Business

Participants will engage in an activity to understand the differences and connections between features and benefits, while defining their own competitive advantage. They will then explore best practices and creative ideas for marketing before beginning to develop a sales pitch for their family child care home business.

Session 3: Writing Your Contracts

Participants will learn best practices for specific contract terms and decide how important each term is to them and their business. The instructor will then lead an introduction to effective contract communication.

Session 4: Policy Handbook & Communication

Participants will review policy handbook content and do role play to practice communicating this information about their program with new clients. They will then practice best practices for phone calls, tours, enrollment folders and long-term partnerships with families.

Session 5: Risk Management & Emergency Preparedness

Participants will discuss the risks of running a child care program, learn the value of creating a risk management plan and brainstorm how to prepare for a variety of risky situations. They will also learn the most important elements of comprehensive business liability insurance.

Session 6: Time-Space Percentage

Participants will review the purpose and meaning of the Time-Space Percentage and play a Bingo-style game for a fun way to review the math concept of percentages. The instructor will then lead an interactive demonstration of calculating a Time-Space Percentage for an example provider before participants split into groups to practice applying the Time-Space percentage skills learned in class.

Session 7: Income and Expense

Participants will review the function of a cash flow statement, identify the importance of budgeting and learn to project income and expenses for a base budget. They will also brainstorm common obstacles to building savings and strategies to meet their savings goals.

Session 8: Financial Management

Participants will review the function of a cash flow statement, identify the importance of budgeting and learn to project income and expenses for a base budget. They will also brainstorm common obstacles to building savings and strategies to meet their savings goals.

Session 9: Recordkeeping & Taxes

Participants will learn about and reflect on business recordkeeping best practices. The class will then discuss strategies to use and questions to ask when looking for a quality tax preparer.

Session 10: Graduation

In this final time together as a class, participants will share and reflect as a large group what they have learned, goals they have met and what goals they still have for themselves and their family child care business. The second part of this class will be all about celebrating the hard work and dedication that participants have put into growing as a professional family child care provider!

Self-Study

There will be pre-work assigned before each class to be completed independently by the participants to be prepared for a group discussion at the beginning of each class. Three hours of training credit will be given if all self-study work is completed and submitted between sessions.