Religious Childcare Providers Are Exempt From Licensing in These States

Entrusting someone else to care for your child can be a difficult step for many parents. When you tour a facility, you should ask the right questions, find a provider who shares your values, and you should check their license status with the state.  

When childcare providers are licensed, it means they meet some basic requirements, including having proper background checks and CPR certifications. It also requires that providers meet specific ratio requirements, to ensure they can meet the needs of many children.

However, a recent series of articles by Amy Julia Harris for the Center for Investigative Reporting has brought out a different side of the story. She found that several states in the US have made exceptions to such regulations for faith-based childcare centers. Faith based centers are centers that are affiliated with certain religious groups, most often churches. This means that they are exempt from the requirement to operate with a license. Sixteen states allow some exceptions to childcare regulations for such centers. Six of these provide the most leeway to faith-based childcare centers, including Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia.

While secular childcare centers operate under strict supervision and regulation by the state, faith-based childcare centers in these states have almost no regulatory oversight. This is because the religious groups behind these centers in these states have successfully made the case that the regulation of their childcare centers would violate the separation of church and state.

This is why many such centers do not have to meet any staff to child ratios. Staff don’t have to receive basic child safety training, and corporal punishment is allowed for faith-based centers in Alabama, Indiana, North Carolina and Missouri. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

The results and consequences of this can be pretty scary. In Virginia, an infant died after being placed face down in his crib by an untrained staff member in a faith-based childcare center. Virginia state law requires staff members of childcare centers to take 16 hours of training each year, and this includes learning that babies should never be placed to sleep on their stomachs. However, since the center was unlicensed and faith-based, these regulations did not apply to them. In the end, the charges against the workers were dropped and the infant’s death was ruled to be caused by SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, however we’re left wondering if that child would still be alive if they had been subject to oversight by the state.

The sad truth is that these childcare providers have a financial incentive not to be regulated and to claim religious exemption from licensure. Fewer regulations means lower operating costs for these faith-based centers. It also means that they can hire fewer workers and avoid building upgrades that government inspections require. Besides being almost unregulated, these centers still receive government subsidies and funding, amounting to millions of dollars every year.

Ironically, as Clare McCann pointed out, federal subsidies serve as signals to parents that a particular center has met some basic standards of health and safety. In these six states, religious providers remain heavily subsidized even though they do not meet this requirement. For instance, between 2011 to 2014, faith-based providers in Alabama and Indiana alone collected over $235 million in government subsidies.

Luckily, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Requiring by law that faith-based childcare centers be regulated just like secular ones is the only way to solve this problem. Several steps have been taken towards achieving this goal over the years. For instance, the 2014 reauthorization of the Child Care Development Block Grant, or the CCDBG, accelerated the march towards ensuring all childcare centers meet basic health and safety standards. It lays down a set of stipulations and guidelines that apply to all centers, whether secular, faith based, licensed, and license exempt.

The CCDBG reauthorization requires:
•    Criminal background checks for all members of staff in childcare centers
•    Regular on-site inspections for all providers receiving federal funds
•    Compliance with general health and safety standards by all service providers
•    Compliance with specific fire standards by all service providers

Additionally, every state is required to ensure that:
•    Policies are put in place to ensure that regular inspections of these childcare centers take place
•    The result of every inspection report is made electronically available to the public
•    All the new background check requirements should have been met by early 2018
•    Every state must provide annual reports that include aggregate data on the number of child fatalities that occur in all facilities, both licensed and license exempt.

When all is said and done, the importance of the service that religious childcare centers provide for many communities throughout the country cannot be overlooked. It can be difficult for many parents to access high quality childcare services, particularly for those parents receiving childcare subsidies. Such parents often feel comfortable knowing that they can drop their child off at the local faith-based center and have them well taken care of.

However, every childcare provider needs to be able to meet at least a few basic health and safety standards. As long as they are entrusted with taking care of our children, all centers, faith based or otherwise, need to be held responsible for creating a safe and healthy environment for the children.

And knowing how fast children learn and develop during those early years, perhaps there will come a time when these centers will also be required to meet specific educational requirements for early care. No provider should be exempt from basic common-sense regulation.

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