Who would you believe.??

[kindertime]

The only way to regulate home daycares effectively is to license them as individuals and independently. ~ and visit them regularly to make sure they are sticking to the rules ongoing.

What you are describing is what we have here, minus the subsidy part. I completely understand why you are saying this, and I agree, but the reality of this kind of a plan would likely be worse for a lot of you than it is now. In order to be visited, there has to be someone to do the visiting. A person with their own opinions and beliefs. The daycare providers won't get to pick who that is, so what if the person doing that job, doesn't like you? What if s/he doesn't like daycares in basements, or doesn't like the way you have your play spaces arranged? There is usually a lot of room for interpretation and misunderstanding in rules and laws. (That's why the lawyers get paid the big bucks!)

In my area, we have a great office for our support, but in some of them, holy cow! I feel really sorry for a lot of the providers and what they have to put up with. For example, the provider was going to lose her licence because the windows of the basement were 1 inch too high on the wall, according to the person doing the inspection. There are stories of the inspectors going into the provider's bedroom and rifling through the dresser drawers. These were the types of situations where the provider had no recourse. There was no one to turn to. Then we unionized. And that just opened up a whole other kettle of fish!

What you are suggesting, makes sense, on paper, but when people are involved, things just get more and more complicated. You would lose more and more of the freedom you want and in the end, the people who want to do something illegal, will still do it! Like I posted yesterday, daycare fraud is a very big business in Que. and we have to most structured system in the country.