3 Reasons Your Childcare Center Needs Social Media Policies for Parents and Staff

By Kimberly Newman @enrollsmart

When we operated our childcare centers, social media was on the rise.  We became well-versed in the use of social media and online reviews because we could see the coming impact that these two phenomena would have on our business.  Today, there is no escaping social media and online reviews; they are everywhere.

We knew that we could not fully control how social media impacted our business but we learned from experience why it was important for us to have clear policies and practices around social media for both our staff and our clients.

One unfortunate experience comes to mind when I think of why we developed our social media policy:  We had a staff person who took photos of a couple of children and posted them on Facebook.  Now, apparently, this staff person had gone to school with the father of the children and, he would pick them up from one of the centers on a regular basis. The staff person had tagged our childcare center as the location where the photo was taken.   

Well... the mother and father of the children were not together and, the mother got wind that the photos of her children were posted on social media and, she was absolutely furious.  In fact, she came to the center to address the situation.  After talking to her and calming her down, I spoke to the staff person and asked if she had made the Facebook post to which she replied: "I surely did." Of course, she was walking out the door jobless within 5 minutes of giving me that kind of response 😋.  Rarely did I take pleasure in firing someone but, I assure you, firing her made my day.  

Now, to try and head off any future occurrences like this, I immediately began developing social media policies to add to both my parent handbook and my staff handbook.  

Today, it appears that a large number of childcare providers use Facebook and other social media to update parents on the activities their center is doing with children and,  to promote their center. Our policy was that parents and staff could "like" our social media pages if they chose to but comments, photos, or tags of any kind were against our policy. 

Why did we have such a restrictive policy? Right, wrong or indifferent, here are the reasons I think a childcare center needs social media policies (with consequences) for both parents and staff:

#1 Child and Staff Safety 

Without safety, a childcare center has nothing.  With limited financial resources available, the vast majority of childcare centers cannot afford a security guard.  I know that I couldn't.  I would venture as far to say that most childcare centers do not know where their clients come or, what their particular family situation really is. 

In the case of the staff person who had posted and tagged the children that went to our center, this could have invited disastrous results if one of the parents were estranged and looking for their children or, if there were other children captured in the photo and, similarly, there was a heated domestic situation currently going on.  This applies to both children and staff.  

I think it is important for prospective parents to meet staff and tour the center while it's in operation to see how staff interact with children, etc. but, I think that policies surrounding the posting of photos, tagging, etc. of staff and children to social media should be strongly considered and, there should be policies that guide parents and staff as to the safety considerations that go along with the use of social media.

#2 Your Center's Reputation

Let's face it, people will post reviews and comments of your childcare center on social media and Google whether you want them to or not. That's something that you cannot control.  What you can control is the consequences for current clients and staff who do it without your consent.  I think it's fine for current customers to post comments on a center's social media if they have the center's permission.  I don't think staff should post at all.  Having a clear social media policy in place can help protect your center's reputation. 

#3 Privacy

Yes, parents give consent for their children to appear in photos at the center or on social media and, we even had parents sign such a form.  However, our reasoning for having parents sign such a form was because we used a closed circuit security system to record our classrooms.  The only people allowed to view our footage were me, my partner and our licensing rep during the handling of complaints.  I know that there are apps and services out there that allow parents to view their child in the classroom...along with the other children sitting next to their children 🤔. In my estimation, having policies and procedures in place to address privacy in childcare centers is going to be even more important going forward.

Our social media policies had the termination of service and the termination of employment as potential consequences for violating them.  Our policies were not intended to suppress the voice of our customers or staff but, to really help protect the safety, privacy and, reputation of the centers we operated.

Kimberly Newman is Customer Success Leader at Enrollsmart and she has 15 years of experience owning multiple small and medium-sized childcare centers simultaneously.  

Enrollsmart supplies mobile websites, online child enrollment, childcare search, attendance tracking and childcare staffing technology for small and medium-sized childcare centers.  To learn more about Enrollsmart, visithttps://www.enrollsmart.net/childcare_software/index.html