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Child Care Licensing Tools and Resources
Within the early care and education system, licensing requirements apply to the largest number of providers who care for millions of children from buth to school age. Licensing helps prevent various forms of harm to children—risks from the spread of disease; fire and other building safety hazards; injury; and developmental impairment from the lack of healthy relationships with adults, adequate supervision, or developmentally appropriate activities.
Licensing is a process administered by state and territory governments that sets a baseline of requirements below which it is illegal for facilities to operate. States have regulations that facilities must comply with and policies to support enforcement of those regulations. The following tools and resources about child care licensing are designed to help states and territories improve their practices, strengthen provider requirements, and develop the skills of licensing staff.
Online Tools
National Database of Child Care Licensing Regulations
This tool helps users find state and territory child care licensing regulations and agency contact information. It includes licensing regulations for child care centers and FCC homes.
Data Explorer and State Profiles
State-level data about licensing requirements are available in the Data Explorer tool. Click the Explore ECE Data tab and select Health and Safety as the topic, and Licensing as the subtopic, and then choose from a list of data definers that include child-staff ratios and group sizes, criminal background checks, minimum preservice qualifications, ongoing training hours, types and frequency of routine licensing inspections, and many more.
National Program Standards Crosswalk Tool
This tool supports the alignment of program standards for licensing, quality rating and improvement systems, and prekindergarten programs. It is prepopulated with national early childhood program standards, including accreditation standards from the National Association for Family Child Care, Caring for Our Children Basics, and Head Start Program Performance Standards.
Issue Briefs on Licensing Topics
The ratio of child care providers to licensing inspectors differs among states, territories and tribes, depending on a variety of factors. This brief explores how these factors help determine the right ratio of inspectors to providers and how many child care providers a licensor can effectively monitor.
This document provides a framework that can be used by state, territory and tribal licensing administrators, managers, and trainers in creating professional development opportunities for child care licensing inspectors and other licensing staff.
This technical assistance resource document outlines the knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and other characteristics that a licensor of child care programs needs to perform his or her job duties successfully.
This document presents steps for developing and revising child care licensing requirements, based on several states' successful practices.
This document presents information about seven states that publish their interpretive guidelines on a public website. Interpretive guides generally help child care licensing staff understand the purpose of licensing requirements and the methods they should use to assess facilities’ compliance with the requirements.
This series of nine briefs addresses health and safety requirements specified in Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) regulations for centers and family child care settings.
This series of licensing reports includes research as well as examples of innovative and diverse state practices aimed at state licensing agencies seeking to strengthen their programs and better protect children in out-of-home care. Topics include inspection policies, enforcement strategies, differential monitoring strategies, quality assurance in licensing, and others.
Planning Tools for Licensing Agencies
This tool that aims to help child care licensing agencies and CCDF lead agencies project the annual caseloads and the cost of monitoring and supporting licensed and license-exempt child care providers. This document includes general guidance on using the tool and considerations regarding each cost category included in the calculator.
This guide focuses on administrative data related to child care licensing, which include information about individual children, families, service providers, and facilities collected and maintained as part of regular program operations. This guide will help CCDF administrators and licensing administrators assess current licensing data systems and identify needed changes. It explores new uses for licensing data, examines strategies for dealing with common challenges, and provides additional resources for review and reference.
This set of tools, developed with the National Association for Regulatory Administration (NARA) lays the foundation for licensing agencies to focus on and assess their resources and processes.
Address two major areas—Organizational Management and Regulatory Management—and are divided into benchmarks that look at overall leadership; strategic planning; financial and human resources; professional development; communication; and statutory, rule, and policy responsibilities.
Can be used by licensing agencies to look for improvement opportunities based on Best Practices or Human Care Regulation.
Helps agencies develop strategic plans to improve their practices.
This tool provides a simple format for states and territories to compare their current early childhood program requirements and standards against the recommended health and safety standards in Caring for Our Children Basics (CFOCB). CFOCB represents the minimum health and safety standards experts believe should be in place where children are cared for outside their own homes, whether in home-based programs or center-based facilities.
Products from the 2017 Child Care Licensing Study
The National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance and NARA collaborate on large-scale studies of child care licensing policies, programs, and regulations. These studies, published in 2005, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2017 provide descriptive data of the licensing policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The following resources provide findings from the 2017 study.
This brief describes licensing requirements and policies for child care centers in 2017 and identifies trends from previous years of data collection. The data in this brief was collected from state child care licensing regulations by the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance and the National Association for Regulatory Administration’s survey of state licensing agencies. The findings provide evidence that states are making positive changes in their licensing requirements and policies to protect the health and safety of children in child care centers.
This brief describes licensing requirements and policies for family child care homes in 2017 and identifies trends from previous years of data collection. The data in this brief was collected from state child care licensing regulations by the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance and the National Association for Regulatory Administration’s survey of state licensing agencies. The findings provide evidence that states are making positive changes in their licensing requirements and policies to protect the health and safety of children in family child care homes.
This brief describes licensing requirements and policies for group child care homes in 2017 and identifies trends from previous years of data collection. The data in this brief was collected from state child care licensing regulations by the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance and the National Association for Regulatory Administration’s survey of state licensing agencies. The findings provide evidence that states are making positive changes in their licensing requirements and policies to protect the health and safety of children in group child care homes.
The 2014 Child Care Licensing Study looked at licensing requirements for child care centers, family child care homes, and group child care homes and licensing agency policies in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and two U.S. territories for 2014
The 2011 Child Care Licensing Study looked at licensing requirements for child care centers, family child care homes, and group child care homes and licensing agency policies in all 50 states, and the District of Columbia.
Resources About License-Exempt Child Care
This issue brief shares the experiences of six states (AR, AZ, IN, ND, NM, and UT) that have begun to address the challenges of monitoring exempt care. In addition to describing the structures of their monitoring systems, the issue brief highlights each state's differences in needs, cultural diversity, compliance levels, and efforts to retain exempt home providers. It also discusses each state's lessons learned, and how they cultivated support for policy changes.
This issue brief explores decision points in developing a monitoring system, including requirements; inspections; and processes for responding to violations, complaints, referrals, and appeals. Caseloads, number of providers, and compensation and support systems for monitors and supervisors are discussed as factors that influence the cost of implementing a monitoring system. Four monitoring models are described and state examples are provided.
This issue brief aims to assist CCDF Administrators and their partners in their work to support license-exempt family child care homes. By addressing the unique needs of exempt FCC homes, states and territories can better support the children in their care and their families. This brief is organized into two sections: the first provides an overview of terminology, characteristics, parental preferences, and child care assistance data, and the second provides examples of several state and national initiatives to support exempt FCC.
Webinars and Presentations
This webinar explores tools and resources available to help states and territories revise their early childhood program standards—such as licensing regulations and quality rating and improvement system standards—and align them with national program standards.
This webinar provides ideas for coordinating monitoring across funding streams, including goals, approaches, and frameworks for coordinated monitoring. Ohio and New Mexico share their strategies for coordinated monitoring.
This presentation at the National Association for Family Child Care’s 2016 Family Child Care Institute includes a dialogue about the types of state, national, and federal standards that providers are required to meet. Presenters from the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance and the National Center on Early Childhood Health and Wellness provide an overview of trends in licensing, subsidy, Head Start, and quality rating and improvement system standards.
This presentation includes an overview of licensing thresholds, common licensing exemptions, national data on monitoring, cost of monitoring, and supports for exempt family child care, including training.
