Wisconsin Department of Children and Families - Division of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Early Care Regulation
Child Care Certification Policy Manual
Residential children include the operator’s own, adopted, foster children, and children who live in the home either full or part-time. The operator’s children, with whom the operator has shared placement, are counted in the group size during the time they reside in the certified home (if they are under age 7). Residential child under age 7 counts in the group size when they are present, even when an adult resident (husband/partner/roommate) is home/present. Typically, certifiers do not exclude residential children under age 7 from group size unless they are physically not present in the home. However, there are temporary situations in which a certifier could allow a residential child under age 7 not to be counted in the group size because another adult is supervising the child and the child is "removed from the caregiving setting." Being removed from the caregiver setting means they are not mingled, interacting with or located in same room(s) as the day care children and are supervised by another adult. The certification worker does have authority to grant an exception to the group size rule under the conditions described in Section 3 of this module and Policy Modules 2 and 3 (Application Process). Certifiers do not have authority to grant exception to licensing law, in that a certified child care operator may not care for more than 3 unrelated children under age 7.
This page last updated 01/2020.