Looking For A Good Day Care Center?
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) teamed up with the Texas Association of Broadcasters in this year-long campaign both to urge parents to choose regulated day care and to help them in their search for licensed and regulated child care facilities.
Unregulated child care may be less expensive and more convenient, but it is not worth the risk. According to the Committee on Licensing Standards’ report to the Texas Legislature last year, 58 children died in illegal home-based day care settings from 2004-2008.
Before choosing a day care facility, parents should do their homework. Information about state licensed and regulated day care facilities is available on the Internet at: http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Child_Care/. Scroll down to the “Search Child Care” link.
The Web site with its multiple links to child care information and services will help parents in their search for state-licensed centers that are inspected regularly for such things as fire safety compliance and sanitation. A state license also means that the facility has the required number of child care staff and prohibits anyone who has been convicted of certain crimes from coming into contact with children.
Parents may use the Web site to locate nearby day care facilities without spending time looking through phone books or driving around neighborhoods. They also may limit their search by typing in the type of care, center-based or home-based, and entering the age of the child and the programs they need. The Web site will help parents eliminate day care facilities that do not meet their needs or those of their child.
By typing in the name of a day care facility, parents may read the results of a center’s inspection and learn whether there were any violations and if they have been corrected. There also is a list of day care facilities with licenses that have been suspended or revoked within the last two years.
A copy of the state’s minimum standards should be available at any licensed day care center. You may check the DFPS Web site for this information or call the Child Care Information Hot Line toll-free at (800) 862-5252.
Compliance with minimum standards does not, however, guarantee high quality care for your child. While the DFPS Web site is extremely useful for locating state licensed and regulated day care facilities, a Web site cannot take the place of firsthand knowledge. Parents should make more than one personal visit to a day care center, giving themselves enough time to meet the director and the staff, watch the staff interact with the children and inspect the facilities.
Personal visits throughout the year will help ensure that the center is providing care second only to that given by loving parents.