Advertising your childcare business

Our Family Information Service (FIS) website receives thousands of visits per month from people looking for childcare. You can use the FIS site to advertise your childcare business for free if you are a:

• nursery
• childminder
• pre-school
• breakfast club
• after school club
• holiday playscheme

The FIS website also advertises activity and support services for families.

Once you have been added to our website, you can update your advertised information by completing a provider update form whenever it is convenient for you and as often as you like.

However, we do recommend reviewing and updating your information at least once per term.

Advertising is free, but you can opt out if you wish and we will remove you from the public list.

If you are registered with Ofsted or a childminder agency, we will receive your basic information from them. Once we have received this information, we will make you a basic record on our secure database.

We will then send you a welcome email and login to access the Online Provider Portal (OPP). On the OPP you can view your provider update form which contains the information Ofsted or the childminder agency have given us. You then provide us with other details about the services you offer, which forms the basis of your record on our website.

You will then be able to update or amend the following information:

• contact information
• vacancies available
• costs
• age ranges catered for
• opening times
• funding available
• websites
• school drop offs/pick-ups (if available)
• Ofsted rating (if known) and latest inspection report
• how you provide for and support children and young people

You can view our provider update page for guidance on how to update your information on our site.

It is important to keep your vacancy information updated, so it is clear what vacancies you have available, and what date they become available.

When you update your details, your information will appear at the top of the web vacancy list, as we display the most up to date information first on our site. Although parents or carers do have the option to sort their search results, this is the default option.

The information displayed on your provider update form is what we display on our FIS website. You can check the information displayed on our FIS website by searching for your service. Any amendments made to your provider update form may take up to 21 working days to process and appear on our site.

Childminders

We do not display the full address of childminders, we publish the:

• village
• town
• postcode

Childminders also have the option to display the FIS phone number and email if they do not wish to display their own. Families can then contact the FIS and we will forward on the enquiry to the childminder on their behalf.

The FIS also provide an Extra Help to Find Childcare service, where we create bespoke lists of early years and childcare providers to suit family’s needs.

If you are not receiving many enquiries for your business consider whether:

• you are telling parents or carers enough about your provision
• you have advertised the training, qualifications, and skills within your setting
• your vacancy information is up to date
• your contact details are correct

The FIS website uses specific search functions to help families search for childcare. This means they can search for childcare in a certain area or that meets a specific need. This reduces the number of calls and emails parents or carers may have to make.

If you want support with advertising or marketing your business West Sussex County Council offer business planning support for early years and childcare providers.

It is important you keep your vacancies as up to date as possible and complete your termly sufficiency update. This information helps us analyse sufficiency of childcare in West Sussex and can reduce unnecessary direct competition for your business.

You can view a range of help guides including how to reset passwords and usernames on our OPP pages.

We provide a range of support for early years and childcare providers on our business support pages.

Contact the FIS if you have any further questions or require support.