Hi Play and Learn--you are absolutely right there are a lot of quality license not required childcares and you sound as if you offer one of these. My point was that if parents are concerned about these issues they should know that there are ways to make sure that these issues are addressed.

The rules and regulations in our area state that an unlicensed childcare may only have 2 children or a sibling group of only 3. Are your regulations different?

Unfortunately many license not required caregivers are not concerned about upgrading their education, getting criminal record searches for themselves and all family members, have Child Safe First aid and CPR, and doing many changes to their homes to make it as safe as possible for the children.

I decided to become licensed so that I could offer the quality, safe, nurturing care that licensing requires. Yes, there are some licensed caregivers that do not abide by the regulations, but at least they can be monitored by the licensing officers and hopefully caught. Many of us have to supplement the family income, love children and want to offer the type of care that we would want for our own children.

I truly believe in family childcare compared to institutional centers,as there have been many investigations, allegations and charges against the centers for mental, physical, sexual abuse and neglect. It is hard to find such incidents with family childcares. When there are so many caregivers it is hard to monitor their behavior when they are caring for the children.

In our area the ECE's and the Child Care Coalition is sending a proposal to the government to start Early Years Centers (Universal Child Care). ECE's will run these centers, fees will be capped at a low level (government will pay you and it will not be what caregivers are charging now) and you may not charge the parents anymore, caregivers may still run out of their homes, but unless you are licensed and sign a contract with the government, you will not be paid the fee from the government (means that parents will have to pay more for your care), daily programs will all be the same, ECE's will work with kindergarten teachers and offer daycare in the classroom before and after kindergarten, the same as grade one. Family child caregivers will loose kindergarten and grade one students in their care. Infants will have a space at a center which is publicly funded (tax payer funded) All of these proposals will put the license not required and the licensed caregiver out of business. I don't know which area you live in, but are you having these issues?