Indiana Association of United Ways Principles for Standardizing Child Care Regulations:
- All children deserve quality child care, no matter what type of care their parents or caregivers select. The State of Indiana has an obligation to help ensure parents have access to quality care and that information about quality is transparent.
- Parent choice is an important value, and the regulations should reflect a range of options that provide comparable quality standards in different settings.
- Changes to regulations should standardize regulations rather than adding complexity or opportunities for parent confusion.
- The State of Indiana has a fiscal and programmatic responsibility to ensure that CCDF vouchers are maximized and are used in quality settings that advance other goals for children (good health, safety, early learning and literacy).
- The Bureau should continue recent efforts to improve care including Paths to QUALITY, active technical assistance with providers and professional development for staff working in child care settings.
- The Bureau should monitor compliance with requirements and effects of changes in requirements. Ideally, various state agencies would monitor long-term effects of quality indicators on health, safety and early learning.
A preliminary draft bill should include the following elements:
- Standardize basic health and safety requirements for all types of currently regulated child care (licensed homes, centers, ministries and all providers that accept CCDF), with basic health and safety requirements number of children allowed, staff qualifications, physical site, child/staff ratios, health, nutrition and inspections (as discussed during 9/29 meeting).
- Health and safety requirements should mirror licensing for either homes or centers, depending if the care is provided in a residential structure. Thus, child/staff ratios for RMs or CCDF providers operating in a residential structure should mirror child/staff ratios for licensed homes and others should mirror licensed centers.
- Registered ministries and CCDF providers should be given up to 2 years to phase in the requirements, with the Bureau of Child Care determining the appropriate stepped approach.
- No grandfathering of any types of providers.
- All legally operating child care providers should be provided a similar progression of recourse (technical assistance, probation, revocation rather than action by Attorney General, as discussed in 9/29/10 meeting).
A second preliminary draft bill should include a study of other types of early care and education, including a way to capture information about the scope and quality of preschool programs, school-age care and other types of care. Recognizing that regulation of other types of care would have a fiscal impact on the State, this bill would assign the responsibility of studying the issue for possible regulation in the future.
