Wisconsin Department of Children and Families - Division of Early Care and Education
Bureau of Early Care Regulation
Child Care Background Check Procedures
A child care background check (CBC) is the collection and analysis of relevant information from numerous sources to determine whether an individual is barred from being a licensee/certified operator, caregiver, employee or resident/household member under the provisions of the background check law, or has offenses that substantially relate to child care.
The following identifies the frequency of the checks conducted on all individuals subject to a child care background check:
Fingerprint-based Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) search, including a search of the National Crime Information Center’s (NCIC) sex offender registry (SOR), Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal history database, and Department of Health Services (DHS) Integrated Background Information System, initially and every 5 years;
Wisconsin Child Abuse and Neglect (CAN) registry, and every 5 years;
Name and address search of the Wisconsin SOR, and every 5 years;
A name-based search of the following in each state in which the individual has resided in the past five years: state criminal repository, state SOR, state CAN registry, initially;
Annual fingerprint-based FBI check if the individual continues to reside out of state (Example: caregiver employee who resides in Illinois but works at a facility located in Kenosha County).
Annual name-based checks of the Wisconsin DOJ criminal history database.
This page last updated 01/2020.