For Babysitters...

Babysitting Safety Tips (and all-around good ideas!): 

• Get to know the parents or guardians of the children you will babysit.  Ask them for a personal reference, and check the referece.
• Ask to have an in-person interview with the family prior to the day of your job; meet in a public place.  Make sure you're comfortable before you take the job.  If you feel uneasy or unsafe, you shouldn't take the job and you shouldn't go! 
• Discuss each job with someone you respect before you say "yes."
• Take jobs you know you can handle.
• Learn First Aid and Infant and Child CPR.  (You can even take this on-line course) 
• Take a Babysitting Class. (There's an on-line course for that too)

Before Accepting a Job, ALWAYS:

• Know how you’ll get to the job and back home safely.
• Know what hours you’ll be expected to babysit.
• Tell a freind —
  • The full name of the parents hiring you.
  • Where you’ll be.
  • How to contact you.
  • When to expect you home.

While on the Job, ALWAYS:

• Arrive early to confirm all of this information and to get any additional instructions.  Complete the Family Interview Form and a Family Interview Information Card, both developed by the American Red Cross.
• Fill-out a Safety Checklist Form, also developed by the American Red Cross).
• Call the parents, if you're unsure about ANYTHING. (If it is a health or safety issue, consider calling 911 first.)
• Come prepared with age-appropriate activities.  Here are some ideas from those wonderful folks at the American Red Cross.

• When the parents or guardians get home, provide them with a Babysitter's Report Record. This likely to delight the parents so much that they email us singing your praises.  (We do follow-up with families, asking them for comments to post next to your listing.)

 While on a Babysitting Job, NEVER

• Invite Someone Over.
• Open the door to anyone before checking to see who it is.
• Open the door to strangers, including delivery people.
• Let anyone inside who is using alcohol or drugs, even if you know them.
• Tell a stranger on the phone that you are the babysitter.
• Stay anywhere you feel unsafe, smell smoke or hear a fire or smoke alarm. (Leave with the children.  Call 911, and tell them you're caring for children.)
• Go outside to check on something strange, such as an unusual noise. (Stay inside. Call 911)