Wisconsin Department of Children and Families - Division of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Early Care Regulation
Child Care Certification Policy Manual
DCF 202 .04(3)(b)9 requires a site visit to be conducted prior to granting regulatory approval to new applicants, annually announced, at relocation and at renewal (every 2 years). New federal requirements described in Operations Memo 16-34 required annual visits effective 11/19/16. Mandatory unannounced annual monitoring of certified family child care programs began 11/19/16 and require monitoring of specific health and safety standards specified by the department. Although certification workers must monitor for specific health and safety rules unannounced annually, there is nothing precluding certification workers from monitoring for additional rules on the Standards and Checklist annually.
In-home child care operators (care provided in the child’s home) shall be monitored annually, however, in-home operators are exempt from the unannounced monitoring requirement. In-home operators remain exempt from specific rules in DCF 202.08(3) and as marked with an asterisk (*) prior to the rule language on the Standards and Checklist.
A certification renewal/recertification visit meets the requirement for an annual unannounced monitoring if the renewal/recertification visit is unannounced. If the renewal visit is announced, the certification worker will need to conduct a second unannounced monitoring visit.
DCF 202 also requires a site visit to be conducted upon receiving an application for a new location. DCF 202.04(3)a also gives certification agencies authority to conduct site visits / inspections any time prior to or after certification is approved to monitor compliance with certification standards.
COVID-19 Update
The department was granted a 2020 waiver from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Child Care, for the requirement to monitor child care programs annually, unannounced. An additional waiver was granted January 2021 through September 2021. This means the department will not monitor certification agencies for 2020 compliance of the requirements under DCF 202.04(3)(b)9.b. and 10 during this time period.
DCF 202 rules requiring an on-site visit for recertification and prior to reopening a child care program after a temporary closure were temporarily waived. The waiver expired February 12, 2021. However, certification agencies continue to have discretion regarding how and when to conduct monitor at recertification or upon opening after a temporary closure. Agencies may choose to monitor a selection of the certification rules virtually (remotely), conduct on-site visits with safety protocols in place, use a combination of an on-site and virtual (remote) visit and/or use reasonable discretion in either postponing monitoring or reducing the number of rules monitored.
Certification agencies need to protect the continued health, safety and welfare of children in care and make certain those protections will exist if an on-site visit is not conducted. In exercising this discretion certification agencies should consider, but are not limited to, the following:
Access and ability to use personal protective equipment (PPE), use of safety precautions and agency developed protocol to increase safety during on-site visits, and/or utilizing certification workers with less vulnerability/health risk factors when conducting on-site monitoring.
The agency’s and certified provider’s access to, ability and effectiveness of virtual (remote) inspections. Do the agency and provider have access to technology needed to conduct virtual monitoring?
Particular need for additional on-site monitoring (length of time between monitoring visits, provider compliance history, etc.).
When possible consider conducting no more than one inspection per day to decrease the risk of cross-contamination between child care homes.
Considerations for alternative methods for inspecting vehicle child safety alarms to ensure they are in good working order. DCF 202.04(3)(b)12.a requires a certification worker to inspect a child vehicle safety alarm, at least annually, to determine whether the child safety alarm is in good working order as required under s. DCF 202.08(9)(p) to (s).
Wisconsin counties Public Health Dashboards’ 7- or 14-day rolling average of COVID-19 cases.
The trend of COVID-19 cases in child care centers within a specific county/tribe.
Any current Executive Orders and local municipal orders intended to limit risk to children, families, caregivers, regulators and the community.
Certification agencies shall conduct initial/relocation on-site visits using agency health/safety protocol. A virtual visit cannot be the sole method for inspecting a home and approving a new or relocation application. New/initial and relocation visits may be conducted using a combination of virtual and in-person on-site monitoring. These visits will require at least some portion of the home inspection to be conducted on-site/in-person. To limit potential exposure, several of the certification rules (those that cannot typically be observed during an initial visit) may be reviewed with the applicant/operator by conducting a phone interview or virtual visit. However, those rules that require observed compliance will require an on-site visit.
See Certification Policy Module 7 - Monitoring for more information regarding conducting site visits.
3.5.1 Initial, Recertification, and Relocation Visits
3.5.2 Expired Recertification Visits
This page last updated 10/2021.