Home Child Care: Licensing
Guidelines and Registration Requirements for Home Day Cares
To be licensed or not to be licensed? This article gives some insight and resources useful in deciding whether to operate a regulated or unregulated home based child care
Perhaps you are a new parent who can not bear leaving your new bundle of joy, or an experienced parent with overwhelming child care bills, or maybe even a childless person seeking a new adventure. For whatever the reason, you are now considering a career in child care. And you are doing your homework and researching first! Good on you! That is the best business decision you have made yet! For stating a child care home is not as simple or seamless as one may think. This statement is not made to discourage you, but to inform you that your work has barely begun. It’s a joyful work, but work nonetheless.
Now, on to the first order of business: deciding whether you would like to be licensed to operate in your State or Province.
In Canada licensure or registration is not required. In the States, however, it’s not so cut and dry. 43 states require some form of certification. Since this list of states likely includes the majority of readers, now is the time to visit the National Child Care Information Center for the list of guidelines for your state. There are seven states that do not require licensure. These states are: Arizona, Idaho, Louisiana, New Jersey, Ohio, South Dakota, and Virginia. In some states, such as Florida, only certain counties require licensing of all child care homes. Other states allow you to care for a certain number of children legally without being licensed. These states include New York and Vermont amongst many others. However, there are some states, like Michigan that require that all daycare homes receive some level of certification before care commences for any non-related child.
Becoming licensed, although time consuming, is not a bad thing. Seeking a child care license or registration is often beneficial for marketing your child care. Parents are more likely to enroll their child when they know that a provider has set operating guidelines to follow, take ongoing early childhood education courses, and is regulated by a government agency. Once licensed you may also become eligible for grants and subsidies not available to exempt or unlicensed child care homes. Many a provider has substantially increased their earnings once licensed by accepting state paid children and participating in the Child & Adult Care Food Program. For more information on this wonderful program, click here.
There are benefits to remaining “unregulated” as well. This list includes: freedom to operate as best suits you and your lifestyle (which is often a major contributing factor when deciding to become your own boss). While ideally your life would not be too disrupted by your new business, the reality is, it often is. This is a fact with any home-based business but even more so when you can expect surprise inspections at whim and have criteria you have to meet and maintain to sustain your license. Throw in the daily, some may think unrealistic, sanitizing regulations and capacity restrictions and what was once your ideal business that perfectly integrated into your home life with your growing family has now morphed into something entirely different. Something you may or may not want to alter your way of life to do. So…
The time has come for you to answer the question: To license or not to license? This article did not equip you with enough detailed information to make an informed decision. However, it hopefully put some thoughts in your head to ponder, and that is step one. You must first think your business through. And come back tomorrow for part two.
