Child Care Service Agreement

A Child Care Service Agreement is a document used by two parties where a child care provider agrees to care for a family's children and the family agrees to pay the provider for this services. This Agreement allows the provider and the family to outline the scope of their relationship and describe the specifics of the child care services that will be provided. This document can be used both by families who wish to hire a child care provider as well as child care providers who wish to provide their services to a family. The provider can be either a single individual or a business that employed child care providers and assigns them to families. Though this document creates a business relationship, it does not create an employer/employee relationship between the parties.

Often, individuals enter into business relationships without having all the details of the parties' relationship written down. By discussing the specifics of the Agreement ahead of time, both the family and child care provider can make sure that their needs and wishes about the business relationship are known and respected. Further, a thorough Child Care Service Agreement can protect all parties if something goes wrong. This document is a specialized form of service agreement. A general purpose Service Agreement is also available on this website.

This document should be used to arrange care for a child, usually under the age of 18 years old. To arrange care for an adult, such as elder care, please use the Caregiver Agreement. This document is used to arrange child care performed by one individual, generally in the home of the hiring family. For a business that provides child care in their own facility, usually with multiple children from different families, please use a Daycare Agreement.

How to use this document

This document covers all of the pertinent information necessary for a child care provider and a family to enter into a business relationship with each other, including the following details:

• Names and ages of all of the children who will be cared for by the provider;
• Hours and dates that the provider will be working;
• Amount of compensation the provider will receive, including overtime pay, and how frequently the provider will be paid;
• Responsibilities that the provider must meet while caring for the children;
• Vacation and holidays; and
• Situations in which the Agreement can be terminated by either party

If possible, the child care provider and family should discuss the terms of the Agreement and create and sign the final Agreement together prior to the work actually beginning. The Agreement can also be created after the work has already begun for the purpose of clarifying the relationship between and the responsibilities of all the involved parties. In addition to this document, the parties may also wish to create a Child Healthcare Consent Form, to ease the child care service provider's ability to seek medical treatment for the child under their care in case of emergency.

Applicable law

All Child Care Service Agreements are subject to both federal and state laws that cover general contract principles governing how contracts are created and interpreted by courts. Federal laws may restrict what services can be contracted for (for example, illegal services may not be contracted for) and certain broad categories, like contracting for something that looks more like an employment relationship, but individual state laws may govern the interpretation of the contract in case of a dispute.

How to modify the template

You fill out a form. The document is created before your eyes as you respond to the questions.

At the end, you receive it in Word and PDF formats. You can modify it and reuse it.