I want to start a business providing childcare from my home. Where do i start?

Question

I live in Arizona, want to open a home based day care. Where do I start? What are the laws, what kinds of things do i need to know? I'm also thinking about leasing property to accomodate more children. Any guidance would probably be more than I have now.

Answer 1

You will need to be licensed if you want to care for more than four children in your home; however, you would still want to become a DHS registered provider and go through their basic process even if you are going to care for a small number of children.

If you want to care for up to 10 children in your home, you need to become a certified group home. If you want to provide care out of the home, you need to become licensed for a child care center.

Also, if you are a smoker, new laws in AZ regarding smoking require that you cannot smoke in a home where there is also a licensed day care facility.

You will need to get a business license through the state and city where you are located. You will need insurance. You will also need to develop menus and determine if you need a food handlers license from the County.

There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle if you want to care for a larger number of children. I suggest you go to the library and find books about small business and child care.

Answer 2

First, you need to contact your state authorities to apply for a license. They usually have requirements to open a daycare. I'm not sure about the state of Arizona, but Pennsylvania requires that the owner have a Bachelors Degree in Education or Childcare of some type. All daycare providers employed at the daycare must be certified. They provide to you all of the information you need (# care people versus # children acceptable; whether you need cribs for infants or portables are acceptable; cleaning methodologies; feeding requirements; etc. etc.).

I found this site which at least gives you the beginning of what you need to do. I'm sure the licensing department will send you all the info you need. Good luck!

http://www.daycare.com/arizona/

Answer 3

There are guidelines you must follow, but I am not sure what there are in Arizona. I live in Canada and the rules for how many children you have are:
kids 2-4 years are 5 children to 1 adult
kids 4-6 years are 6 children to one adult
and I am unsure of school age....you will have to check on that one.
Other than it is basic safety, you have to pass fire safety codes and so on.
GOOD LUCK!

Answer 4

I have a licensed home child care and have been a provider for 20 years. Each state sets their own licensing rules for child care homes. I live in Michigan and our rules are set by the Department of Human Services. Each of our counties has their own local Department of Human Services Office of Children and Adult Licensing. That is who you would contact if you wanted to open a child care home in Michigan. I would suggest that you contact your local office of human services which may be called social services or family independent agency or something similar. You can locate that office in the Government section of your phone book or you can search the Internet. In our state, the maximum you may have in a home child care setting is 12 with 2 care givers. Any more children and you may not operate from your home. If you are interested in caring for more than 12 children, you would be required to open a child care center and would have a different set of rules to follow along with a different set of requirements to be met before opening.

Answer 5

First of all, you need to be liscensed. That's the big one. If you're not, you can find out when you take any nesecary courses to become so.