Business Development - childminder achieves the right blend with new business venture

A member of Amanda Beable's site recently said that it had 'saved her sanity' and positive feedback from a steadily growing membership highlights that its resources and support are hitting the spot.

Childminding Cafe provides downloadable templates for risk assessments and planning, for example, a coaching Q&A board, newsletters, blogs and more. The aim is not just to take the headache out of paperwork but to provide a range of support on all aspects of day-to-day practice.

Ms Beable, who is based in Hampshire, doesn't aspire to rival the large early years associations but wants to play a part in helping more childminding businesses get off the ground. She also wants to help raise standards among those who want to improve their Ofsted rating.

'My background is working in a large business environment and I had a career at Eon before having children,' she says. 'I set myself up as a childminder in my village when my oldest child's child- minder resigned, and in 2008 I was graded outstanding by Ofsted.'

Ms Beable says that she discovered she enjoyed the paperwork side of the business and found she was often helping other childminders to organise their policy and procedures. From this the idea of the Childminding Cafe was born and, after a break from childminding, and a house move, she launched the site last February. The fact that she is currently studying for an MBA at Warwick University has added impetus.

'The priority was to provide answers to questions in an accessible way. I decided to run a Q&A board rather than a forum, as a forum can be a full-time job in itself and has insurance implications,' she says. 'The range of questions are often to do with practical issues around statutory requirements. For example, often a childminder will be unsure about the exemption clause, whereby an exceptional circumstance will mean they can look after more children.

She adds, 'In the past week, of course, there has been a huge conversation going on around Liz Truss's announcements.'

While Ms Beable works with a childminding association in Hampshire and has built awareness of her service by word of mouth, she hopes the site's national reach will grow.

'I have sold some group memberships to local authorities and hope to expand on these,' she says. 'Local authorities recognise that membership could be most useful to those childminders who are satisfactory and want to improve.'

She says that she makes it clear that what she is offering is business advice, rather than positioning herself as an early years expert. 'We have a very low membership cancellation rate which shows that members want to stay with the service, and this is very encouraging.'

www.thechildmindingcafe.co.uk