Contact your State licensing agency to find out if a child care program is licensed, or to file a complaint if you think a program is not following regulations.
To find or obtain a full-text copy of your State’s child care licensing regulations, visit the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education on the Web at http://nrc.uchsc.edu/STATES/states.htm.
If you suspect that abuse or neglect is taking place in a child care setting, you can do the following: • Call the Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline at 800-422-4453, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The hotline gives information about where to file and how to make a report. • Contact your State child protective services (CPS) agency. Contact information for all State CPS agencies is available on Child Welfare Information Gateway’s Web site at http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/reslist/rl_dsp.cfm?rs_id=5&rate_chno=11-11172. • Contact your State child care licensing agency if you think your child care provider is not following State regulations. Contact information for all State licensing agencies is available on the National Child Care Information and Technical Assistance Center’s, a service of the Child Care Bureau, Web site at http://nccic.acf.hhs.gov/statedata/dirs/display.cfm?title=licensing. • Call Child Welfare Information Gateway at 800-394-3366. Or visit the Web at http://www.childwelfare.gov for information in English, and at http://www.childwelfare.gov/espanol/ for information in Spanish. This site has resources about prevention, identification, and treatment of child abuse and neglect and other child welfare issues.