Childminding policies and procedures set out how you run your childcare service. They are useful because they encourage you to think in advance about how you will deal with specific situations that you might encounter including emergencies, so when they do occur you can deal with them more effectively. Written policies can also be shared with parents and other professionals to explain clearly how you run your setting.

Required Policies

The table below indicates policies that are either specifically required by legislation/standards or, whilst not explicitly required, a practical way of meeting a required standard.

Required Policies	England	Scotland	Wales	N. Ireland	S. Ireland
Safe Guarding Children / Child Protection Policy
Complaints Procedures
Confidentiality
Emergency Procedures
Accident Procedures
Health & Safety / Risk Assessment
Medicines, Sickness & Exclusion
Fire Procedures
Parents Failing to Collect
Lost Child Procedure
Behaviour Management/Sanctions
Equal Opportunities Policy
Working in Partnership with Parents

Although not all policies are compulsory in every area, you may still find these core policies particularly useful to explain to parents what to expect from your service.

Other useful policies include:

• Meals and Nutrition Policy
• Anti Bullying Policy
• Special Needs Policy
• Payment & Fees
• Fire Safety Policy
• Daily Routines
• Settling Children In
• Provision of Basic Play and other Activities

You do not have to have a full policy document for every individual policy. You may combine several into one document or even have one document with a short paragraph about each situation.

It can be easy to get carried away and write unnecessary policies cover every possible situation. This creates extra paperwork for you and can be very daunting for parents to read. If you find yourself writing lots of policies that could easily be replaced with the statement ‘I will use common sense’ stop and think whether what you are writing will actually be useful to you or parents.