Child Care Licensing Study, United States, 2017

The 2017 Child Care Licensing Study provides information collected about child care licensing programs and policies and the facility requirements for child care centers, family child care homes, and group child care homes for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Limited center regulations data are available for U.S. territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
The data about state licensing policies, including facility monitoring, enforcement of licensing regulations, and licensing program staff, were gathered by the National Association for Regulatory Administration (NARA) in the 2017 NARA Child Care Licensing Programs and Policies Survey. NARA sent an online survey to all state child care licensing agencies in March 2018. Respondents submitted their answers via Survey Monkey, and by January 2019, all states had responded.
The data from the Licensing Survey cover the following topical areas:

Number of licensed facilities
Complaint investigations
Licensing staff
Enforcement actions
Types of inspections
Licensing information on the Internet
Frequency of inspections
Licensing fees
Frequency of licensing
Licensing staff requirements
Inspections and monitoring
Licensing's role in quality initiatives
The data about licensing requirements for child care centers, family child care homes, and group child care homes were collected by the National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance from the regulations posted on the National Database of Child Care Licensing Regulations that were in effect as of December 31, 2017. The licensing regulations data cover the following areas:

Licensing regulations
Additional staff training requirements
Definition of licensed child care centers
Child-staff ratios and group size
Staff roles and age requirements
Supervision of children
Staff qualifications and ongoing training requirements
Care of children
Facility requirements and
Staff hiring requirements
The same web site was used to collect licensing regulations covering the above listed topics for small family child care homes and large/group family child care homes.