Child Care

CHILD CARE
The League of Women Voters of Virginia strongly believes that the state has a role to play in child care in the Commonwealth to ensure that children in these services receive the quality of care consistent with their developmental needs. The state's role should include licensing all of the following care facilities:

Child care homes for more than five, and up to ten children;
Child care centers of ten or more children; Family child care systems;
Church-sponsored child care;
Facilities run by hospitals for their own employees;
Facilities run by universities/colleges for staff and students;
Facilities run by governmental units;
Drop-in centers;
Before-and-after-school programs; and
Nursery schools (no more than four hours per day per child).

The state should have a role in monitoring an up-to-date listing of child care facilities.
The following minimum standards should be required for licensing and should cover:

Space and physical facilities, including equipment;
Health and sanitation;
Staff/child ratios;
Qualifications of staff (training, experience, absence of criminal record);
Admissions policy (health and immunization records);
Identifier and locator information; and Written statements to parents (on operations policies and procedures).

Minimum standards should be required for licensing for group size in:

Centers of ten or more children;
Family child care systems; and
Nursery schools.

The state should provide:

Some form of financial assistance to increase the affordability and availability of child care.
Such assistance could include direct subsidies to low-income parents; direct subsidies to providers to allow enrollment of low-income families; start-up or improvement loans to providers; tax relief to parents; incentives to employers offering child care benefits to employees; and matching local funds for those jurisdictions which help fund child care;
Free training to care givers and other staff to improve the quality of child care;
Education to parents about quality child care, and
Assistance to child care facilities in dealing with liability insurance.

The General Assembly should authorize local school boards and governments to provide before-and-after-school child care for school-aged children. We support central coordination of child care policies in an existing agency of the state government which is adequately funded and staffed. (1988)

Comments, suggestions, questions? Contact our webmaster. Last revised: July 6, 2008 04:26 PDT.