Child Care Licensing Study, 2008 [United States] (ICPSR 31501)

Principal Investigator(s): Fischer, Sheri, United States Department of Health and Human Services. Administration for Children and Families. National Child Care Information and Technical Assistance Center; Koch, Pauline, National Association for Regulatory Administration

Summary: The purpose of the 2008 Child Care Licensing Study is to report two aspects of child care licensing from 2008 for all 50 states and the District of Columbia (not including Idaho): (1) state child care licensing programs and policies and (2) child care center and family child care home licensing regulations. The study focuses on the processes and policies in each state related to staffing for the licensing program, monitoring facilities, and enforcement of licensing regulations. To collect inform... (more info)

Series: Child Care Licensing Survey Series

• This data is freely available.

• This study is provided by Child Care & Early Education Research Connections.

Fischer, Sheri, and Pauline Koch. Child Care Licensing Study, 2008 [United States]. ICPSR31501-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-10-26. doi:10.3886/ICPSR31501.v1

Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR31501.v1

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Summary:  

The purpose of the 2008 Child Care Licensing Study is to report two aspects of child care licensing from 2008 for all 50 states and the District of Columbia (not including Idaho): (1) state child care licensing programs and policies and (2) child care center and family child care home licensing regulations. The study focuses on the processes and policies in each state related to staffing for the licensing program, monitoring facilities, and enforcement of licensing regulations.

To collect information on states' licensing policies, including staffing, monitoring, and enforcement of licensing regulations, the National Association for Regulatory Administration (NARA) disseminated the 2008 NARA Child Care Licensing Program Survey to all state child care licensing agencies in May 2009. Responses were received from all states. The survey focused on the processes and policies in each state related to staffing for the licensing program, monitoring facilities, and enforcement of licensing regulations. The data cover the following topical areas:

• Number of licensed facilities
• Complaint investigations
• Licensing staff
• Enforcement actions
• Types of inspections
• Licensing information on the Internet
• Frequency of inspections
• Licensing fees
• Frequency of licensing
• Licensing staff requirements
• Inspections and monitoring and
• Licensing's role in quality initiatives

The child care center licensing regulations used for this study are those that were posted on the National Resources Center for Health and Safety in Child Care (NRC) Web site. The data cover the following areas:

• Licensing regulations
• Additional staff training requirements
• Definition of licensed child care centers
• Child-staff ratios and group size
• Staff roles and age requirements
• Supervision of children
• Staff qualifications and ongoing training requirements
• Care of children
• Facility requirements and
• Staff hiring requirements

The same Web site was used to collect licensing regulations covering the above listed topics for small family child care homes and large/group family child care homes. More information on the study is located at the National Association for Regulatory Administration's Web site.

Subject Terms:   child care, child health, child nutrition, licensing, state regulations

Smallest Geographic Unit:   state

Geographic Coverage:   United States

Time Period:  

• 2008-01--2008-12

Date of Collection:  

• 2009-01--2009-10

Unit of Observation:   state agency

Universe:   All state child care licensing agencies, including the District of Columbia and excluding Idaho.

Data Types:   administrative records data, survey data

Data Collection Notes:

The child care center licensing regulations used for this study are those that were posted on the National Resources Center for Health and Safety in Child Care (NRC) Web site between January 1, 2008, and December 31, 2008. The same Web site was used to collect licensing regulations covering the topics listed for small family child care homes and large/group family child care homes. More information on the study is located at the National Association for Regulatory Administration's Web site.

The data in this collection has been organized in a way designed to reflect the existing structure presented in the Child Care Licensing Survey Final Report and on the NARA Web site.

Users should note that due to limitations in SAS, Stata, and SPSS, variables containing open-ended/qualitative data (greater than 244 characters) are available in Microsoft Excel format only.

Upon conversion from the original Microsoft Access database, some formatting was not retained.

No data is available for Idaho. Idaho does not have child care licensing at the state level.

Mode of Data Collection:   web-based survey

Response Rates:   Responses were received from all states and the District of Columbia (excluding Idaho).

Extent of Processing:  ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

• Performed consistency checks.
• Created variable labels and/or value labels.
• Standardized missing values.

Original ICPSR Release:  2011-10-26

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