Paul Szmal: FLX Morning continues now, it is 8.15, and I'm happy to be joined by Kelly Arook from our friends at Child and Family Resources. Kelly, good morning, how are you this morning?
Kelly Arouk: Good morning Paul, I'm well, thank you for having me today.
Paul Szmal: Yes, appreciate you being here, and we wanted to talk today about a whole concept and a whole program involving legally exempt enrollment. Can you kind of give me the basics of what that is about?
Kelly Arouk: Yes, so legally exempt enrollment is when a person receives child care assistance and they want to pay a family member, a friend, or a neighbor to provide care for them. So they don't necessarily have to go to a licensed or registered child care provider, but a person could pay grandma, aunt, uncle, or a close trusted friend to provide care for them.
Paul Szmal: What are the requirements that would allow somebody to provide this type of care without a license or registration?
Kelly Arouk: Yes, so really the only requirements are they need to be over the age of 18, and they need to be willing to follow a certain set of regulations and accept child care assistance payments from the state.
Paul Szmal: Okay, now if there's no license or registration, how does one go about declaring themselves legally exempt?
Kelly Arouk: So they would reach out to us, Child and Family Resources, or their local child care resource and referral agency, and we would go through a process with them of completing a small set of paperwork, a packet, that would allow them to become enrolled.
Paul Szmal: Okay, now how many different types of child care does this actually cover?
Kelly Arouk: Yeah, that's a great question. So there are four different types of child care that this covers. There is family child care, where the child care is provided in the provider's home, and that can be family child care, non-relative or relative. And then there's also in-home child care, where the child care is provided in the child's home, and that's also relative or non-relative.
Paul Szmal: Okay, what if the provider is related to the child? Does that make a difference in this type of proceeding?
Kelly Arouk: Yes, it does. So when a child care provider is related to the child, there are less steps to take. They have to attest to criminal history, but they're not required to go through comprehensive background checks. They are not required to do trainings. It's often a little less cumbersome than it is when they're not related.
Paul Szmal: And anyone over the age of 18 is eligible for this, correct?
Kelly Arouk: That is correct. You do have to be 18 because you have to be willing to submit to certain types of checks, like a standard sex offender check and CPS checks, but yes, anyone over the age of 18.
Paul Szmal: Now, what's one of the advantages for this for somebody who is looking for child care?
Kelly Arouk: So child care is very limited, as I'm sure you've heard Julie talk about. There's a huge need for licensed and registered child care. So that being said, it's nice to have that other option because sometimes your family member may just need a little bit of income to be able to do this, or they need some type of money. And then just also having that piece where people can come into your home and provide child care is another situation. Often our legally exempt providers are enrolled for hours that may be evening or overnights and things like that, something a registered or licensed center may not offer.
Paul Szmal: All right. We're talking with Kelly Arouk here on FLX Morning. We're talking about the concept of legally exempt enrollment and everything that that entails for child care. I have to think there's a distinct advantage as well for people who want to apply for this type of thing because there aren't as many hoops to jump through as there would be if you were wanting to be a licensed registered child care provider.
Kelly Arouk: That is correct. There aren't quite as many. So a legally exempt provider is still held to certain regulations and standards, just like a family daycare. They are required to keep attendance and do fire drills. But we are able to walk them through that process a little bit more, whereas registered child care, it's really on that provider to be running that business. We still help those registered providers, but with legally exempt, we have a little more leeway to really work with them one-on-one.
Paul Szmal: How many legally exempt providers do you think are actually in our area right now?
Kelly Arouk: Yeah. So between Seneca, Ontario, and Yates County, we have about 100.
Paul Szmal: Wow. That's a bigger number than I anticipated.
Kelly Arouk: Yeah. It's a lot of family members, to be honest with you. That is our biggest client base, I would say, is grandparents, aunts, and uncles, but we still also have a decent amount of non-relatives as well.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. So talking about some of the standards and some of the protocols that have to be followed, are there any kind of spot inspections or anything like that that are done that are sometimes done with a licensed or registered entity?
Kelly Arouk: Yeah. That's a great question. So a non-relative provider is required to have an inspection once a year, and relative providers only are required to have an inspection if we were to receive some type of complaint against the program.
Paul Szmal: Gotcha. Now, if people want to find out more information about legally exempt enrollment and maybe are looking at doing this as a type of program for their child care, how could they reach out?
Kelly Arouk: They can call any of our offices. We have an office in Penan, Canandaigua, and Seneca Falls. They can call any of those offices and ask for someone in the legally exempt team. We also have some information on our website, cfresources.org.
Paul Szmal: Awesome. Well, thank you very much, Kelly. I appreciate the information this morning.
Kelly Arouk: Thank you, Paul. Have a great day.
Paul Szmal: All right. You too, as well. It is 821 on FLX Morning.
