Starting a Child Day Care Business

What does this Web Guide Do?

This Web Guide provides some examples of Web sites that might be useful to someone looking to start a day care business, either as a stand-alone business or in the home.  This guide covers child care business only in the United States.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list of available good Web sites on the topics mentioned here.  That kind of list would be so large that it would be unusable.  Just because a site is not listed here does not mean that it is not a good, useful site.

This Guide also has links to sites of general interest to business owners in topics such as forming a business organization or structure, business insurance, and employment law.

General Information

The following sites contain useful information and advice for the novice to read when considering whether to open a child care business, and for the person who needs to know what steps to go through to start a new child care business.

•  The Dollar Stretcher—Starting a Day Care Business?  Want to hear from others who have started a day care business?  This page contains answers from several people to one user’s request for advice on starting a day care business.  The responses cover a wide range of issues, from motivation for starting the business to the legal issues that may be involved.  The site itself is a site devoted to frugality.  The site contains advice on—as the name states—stretching your dollar.
   

• Starting a Family Child Care Program.  This page, part of the National Child Care Information Center [a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services] Web site, provides some basic information to those considering starting a "family" day care center.  A "family" day care center is one run out of a home, as opposed to a commercial property.  This site includes links to organizations that will be useful to the newcomer.
   

• Starting Your Own Family Child Care Business.  The National Association for Family Child Care provides this page of basic information for people interested in opening a family child care business.  The business owner may also wish to join the association, but the association provides little useful information on the Web site itself.
   

• How to Start Your Own Day Care Center.  This article is provided by PowerHomeBiz.com, which described itself as "an online magazine offering a wide-range of high-quality information and tools for home businesses."  Although the site has some annoying ads on it (and in pop-up windows), the information is useful.  Day care operators may even want to follow some of the links to advertisers, especially the ones to books about opening a day care center.
   

• Starting a Family Day Care.  This is another article on starting a family day care center.  It is on the American Baby magazine web site.

Back to top

Organizations and other Web Guides

The links in this section are to organizations relating to child day care, to organizations that provide information about child day care, and to other Web Guides that provide links to information relating to child care.

• National Network for Child Care.  The National Network for Child Care is run by the Cooperative Extension System.  This site is operated by the Iowa State University Extension.  The site contains an incredible amount of information on all aspects of child care.  The information is aimed at both child care professionals and at parents.  The site has especially good information on business management, from taxes to customer relations, links to which are on its Business Management page.
   
• Tufts University Child & Family Web Guide.  This web guide provides links to information about children and families generally.  One section is on child care and day care.  The other sections are, however, just as useful for the day care provider.  The site has comprehensive reviews of the sites it lists.
   
• National Association for the Education of Young Children.  The NAEYC is the national association for early childhood educators.  The web site provides some information, including abstracts of recent articles from the NAEYC journal, but the site is mostly about the organization itself and its position on several national policy issues.
   
• National Association for Family Child Care.  This organization is geared towards day care centers run out of family homes.  The web site does not contain much useful information in itself, but it does provide information about the organization, which a home day care provider may wish to join.
   
• USA Child Care.  USA Child Care is an organization of day care providers.  The primary purpose of the organization is to "bring the voice of direct services providers to national and state policy dialogue," especially where it concerns day care services for low-income families.

Back to top

Laws, Regulations and Standards

This section contains links to sites that will help you find the laws and regulations governing child day care providers where you are, as well as guidelines to use in designing a day care.  Most of the guidelines are part of the regulations in each state, but some national guidelines are included here for those who want to see what national experts have recommended as standards for day care businesses.

• National Child Care Information Center—State Child Care Profiles.  The National Child Care Information Center (NCCIC) is an agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services that is dedicated to improving the child care industry in the United States.  This page provides links (using a map and a list of state names) to pages that contains useful information on each state, including general demographics; the numbers and types of licensed day cares operating in the state; the staff-to-child ratio requirements in the state; and a list of agencies that regulate child day care businesses in the state.
   

• National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care—Individual States' Child Care Licensure Regulations.  This web site provides links to the licensing regulations for child care businesses in each state.  The links are to the actual text of the regulations in each state, and not to the web pages of the agencies that promulgate the regulations.
   

• National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care   According to the site, “The National Resource Center is located at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, Colorado, and is funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, HRSA. NRC's primary mission is to promote health and safety in out-of-home child care settings throughout the nation.”
  
  The site contains a manual, Caring For Our Children: National Health and Safety Performance Standards: Guidelines for Out-of-Home Child Care, which is co-written by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, and the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center at Fitzsimons. 
  
  The site also has a page of links to other child care safety web sites, covering everything from bicycle safety to disasters. 
   

•  Child Care Settings and the Americans with Disabilities Act.   This is an article by an organization called The Arc, which is an organization of and for persons with mental retardation and related developmental disabilities and their families.  The article is a good primer on issues that day care providers should be aware of with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
   

• Employment Law Guide.  This is the United States Department of Labor's main page for federal employment law.  It provides links to descriptions of just about any type of law that governs the employer-employee relationship, from wages to workplace safety.
   

• BusinessLaw.gov.  This is the United States Small Business Association's guide to business law for small businesses.  It has easy-to-read introductions to each aspect of business law; links to information about each state's laws relating to businesses; and information on federal regulations affecting businesses.

Back to top

Federal Government Agency Information

• The Child Care Bureau.  The Child Care Bureau is a division of the Administration for Children and Families, which is a division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.  The Bureau administers grants to states, territories and Native American Tribes to improve day care in the U.S.  The site contains some useful information for day care providers, including statistics on day care use and government policies regarding day care providers.
   
• National Child Care Information Center.  This agency is a division of the Child Care Bureau.  Its role is to provide information to day care providers, parents, social service agencies and government agencies that deal with child care issues.  The site has a wealth of information, including basic primers (in the "most requested information" section), in-depth resources on everything from brain development to welfare reform, and links to useful directories.
   
• United States Census Bureau.  This link will take you to the page of the United States Census Bureau (a division of the Department of Commerce) containing statistics on day care and child care.  The most recent data, unfortunately, is from 1997.
   
• Elementary and Early Childhood Educational Resources on the Internet.   This is a page of dozens of links to various types of information about early childhood education.  It is maintained by the Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education (EECE) of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) of the United States Department of Education.

Back to top

Equipment and Supplies

• Detailed Play Systems.  Manufacturer of play sets for the outdoors.
   
• Early Childhood Manufacturers' Direct.  This Website provides the user a single source for obtaining many types of day care equipment from several manufacturers.
   
• Home Daycare Start up and Recordkeeping Information.  This site, from Daycare Hotline, provides many of the supplies for the nitty-gritty details of the business.  The site provides supplies for the business end of the day care business, from contracts with parents to attendance forms.  The site also sells advertising on its Web site, which it claims many parents visit when choosing a day care.
   
• MatsMatsMats.com, children's mats page.  This site sells just what the name implies--mats.  For day cares, it has play mats, body pillows, and "landing pads" for kids.
   
• Tuff-Ware.  This site carries a variety of supplies that day care businesses might need.  Equipment on the site includes toys, furniture, school supplies, arts and crafts supplies, games, and playground equipment.
   
• Swing-N-Slide.  This is the site of a manufacturer of commercial-quality outdoor playground sets.

Back to top

Insurance

These sites provide information on the insurance that a day care provider should have, and provide places at which a day care provider may be able to purchase the necessary insurance.
 

• Insurance.com.  This page is a short answer to a "frequently asked question" about insurance for day care providers, especially in-home day care providers.  The site itself is run by Fidelity Investments. 
   
• Child Care--Liability Insurance.  This page provides extensive information on liability insurance for day care providers.  The page is part of the National Network for Child Care site.  The second part of the site's coverage on liability insurance is called Insurance Part II--Commercial Liability Insurance.  The same site also has other pages on insurance.  See the site's Business Management Page for more links, and for links to other useful information on business management.
   
• American Federation of Daycare Services, Inc.  AFDS is a "risk purchasing group formed to bring together daycare organizations from all over the country for the purposes of obtaining general liability insurance at an affordable price."  It can provide a quote for liability insurance.

Back to top

Marketing and Franchise Opportunities

This section has links to information on marketing a new child care business, and on available franchises for day care centers.

• Care Providers Directory.  DaycareProviders.com runs this directory of day care providers.  There are two levels of listings, basic and premium, that differ in the amount of information the day care owner can provide in the directory.  DaycareProviders.com claims to be at the top of many search engine results for a search for "day care" or the like. 
   
• National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.  The NACCRRA is the national organization of local child-care referral agencies.  By following the links in this site, a new child care operator can find out where to list the child care business so that parents can find it.  The site also provides links for parents to use to find good day care centers.
   
• Kiddie Academy Franchise Opportunities.  This page is an ad for franchise opportunities in the Kiddie Academy chain of day care centers.  The page contains contact information to get more details on becoming a franchisee.

Back to top