Business Administration Scale for Family Child Care (BAS)

The first valid and reliable tool for measuring and improving the overall quality of business and professional practices in family child care settings.

The Business Administration Scale® for Family Child Care (BAS ®) is applicable for multiple uses, including program self-improvement, technical assistance and monitoring, training, research and evaluation, and public awareness. It is currently embedded in many state quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) across the nation.

Using a 7-point rating scale (inadequate to excellent), this easy-to-use instrument assesses 10 items:

• Qualifications and Professional Development
• Income and Benefits
• Work Environment
• Fiscal Management
• Recordkeeping
• Risk Management
• Provider-Family Communication
• Family Support and Engagement
• Marketing and Community Relations
• Provider as Employer

The second edition of the BAS includes refinements to support the reliable use of the instrument and to reflect current best practices in administering a family child care program:

• The Notes for the BAS items are expanded to increase understanding and facilitate greater consistency in both interpretation and scoring.
• There is greater emphasis on practices that promote family and community engagement.
• New national norms for the BAS are reported based on data collected between 2009 and 2017 from 439 home-based programs in 22 states.

Use the BAS second edition with the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale (FCCERS-3 or FCCERS-R) for a comprehensive picture of your family child care learning environment and the business and professional practices that support the program.

Teri N. Talan is the Michael W. Louis Endowed Chair and Senior Policy Advisor at the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership at National-Louis University in Wheeling, Illinois. Paula Jorde Bloom (1947–2018) was professor emerita at National-Louis University. They are the authors of the bestselling Program Administration Scale: Measuring Early Childhood Leadership and Management, Second Edition (PAS).

“The business side of family child care has too often been ignored. The Business Administration Scale for Family Child Care has been a valuable resource since 2009 that identifies the ten components of a successful family child care business. It’s a unique tool that has helped thousands of providers across the country measure and improve their business practices. This second edition provides an enhanced focus on family support and engagement. It also includes additional information on how to interpret the BAS indicators that make it much more user friendly. I highly recommend it!”
—Tom Copeland, family child care business consultant

"The BAS guides family child care providers to succeed as business owners and maintain healthy policies to support caregiver wellbeing. The comprehensive content and clear format makes it useful for both providers and those who support them."
—Nichole Parks, program coordinator, Arkansas State University Childhood Services

Tentative Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Overview of the Business Administration Scale
   Rationale
   Multi-Use Design
   Items, Indicator Strands, and Indicators
   Definition of Terms 

Using the Business Administration Scale
   Data-Collection Procedures
   Scoring the BAS 

Business Administration Scale Items
   Qualifications and Professional Development
   Income and Benefit
   Work Environment
   Fiscal Management
   Recordkeeping
   Risk Management
   Provider-Family Communication
   Family Support and Engagement
   Marketing and Community Relations
   Provider as Employer

Business Administration Scale Forms
   Documents for Review
   Provider Qualifications Worksheet
   Item Summary Form
   Business Administration Scale Profile

Appendices
   Psychometric Characteristics of the BAS
   References and Resources
   About the Authors