Understanding the Risks

Opening and running a child care facility can be very rewarding as you become a key stakeholder in helping young children learn, grow and develop. Planning and preparation is important and so is ensuring compliance to State and Federal regulations. These regulations are designed to promote and ensure the highest level of safety and quality in child care while protecting the health and welfare of children in care. To accomplish, this State and Federal legislature has developed comprehensive statutes, policies, procedures and guidelines that promote the growth and stability of the child care industry while ensuring the safe physical, intellectual and social development of the child.

However, ensuring compliance with the statues and administrative codes can be quite complex. Laws and regulations are constantly evolving and changing. At the same time it is up to you the provider to know the laws and the implications to your institution – the burden is on you to be fully aware and compliant with the latest regulations. If a child care center is issued a Class I or II violation the results can include; loss of the Gold Seal Accreditation, other professional accreditations, the termination of the Early Coalition contract, and potential loss of child readiness dollars. In essence a Class I or II violation can cause a school to close due to the significant loss of income that can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

The risks of non-compliance are significant and include but are not limited to:

  • Being issued a Class-I, II, or, III violation,
  • Risk of the State suspending or terminating your license resulting in the closure of your care facility,
  • Risk of criminal prosecution resulting from neglect,
  • Irreparable damage resulting in the complete loss of funding from the State and Federal government, and
  • Loss of gold seal accreditation or other accreditations (i.e., APPLE, NAEYC) which in turn would lead to loss of child readiness dollars. 

This area of our firm specializes in helping child care providers in understanding the risk and avoiding violations due to non-compliance.