The Licensing of Child-Care Facilities

Although care for children outside their own homes has been in existence since the founding of this nation, licensing of child-caring facilities came into being some years later. Some form of licensing is now mandatory in a majority of the fifty states. The licensing program involves legislation, interpretation, and implementation. The number of children protected through licensing is increasing rather than decreasing. The tendency within some states to exempt certain agencies from the provisions of the law appears to be passing. There are indications, too, of a trend toward more uniformity of laws among the various states. It is recognized that, although licensing provides certain basic protections for children under care away from their own homes, it does not, and indeed can not, guarantee that the needs of each child will be fully met. It does establish a framework within which, hopefully, each agency may carry out its responsibility to the children entrusted to it. Although authority is a necessary factor in licensing, the importance of education and voluntary co-operation should not be minimized, for these areas contribute greatly toward the development of a sound law, proper implementation of the law, and, therefore, increasingly higher quality of child care.