By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Jeannie Brock, the training coordinator with the Shelby County Family Child Care Association, dropped an 89-page stack of papers on the table and smiled.

“That’s all of the regulations we have to abide by to be a licensed home daycare,” Brock said, thumbing through the book-like volume. “Unfortunately, that isn’t as well-known as it should be.”

Brock and about 20 other local home daycare operators congregate each month at the First Presbyterian Church of Alabaster off Alabama 119 to review new guidelines, share information on their home setups and ensure they are all up-to-date on the state’s requirements for licensed home daycares.

The Alabama Department of Human Resources requires all people older than 19 to be licensed home daycare operators if they care for one or more children not related to them, with or without compensation, away from the child’s home and for more than four hours in a 24-hour period.

To become licensed, home daycare operators must meet many DHR requirements, and must allow DHR employees to inspect their homes at any time without notice. DHR minimum standards include hundreds of guidelines, such as requiring all clear glass doors to be marked a child-level to prevent collision, requiring homes to have at least 32 square feet of usable indoor floor space for each child the home is licensed to serve and prohibiting the use of soft materials “such as pillows, quilts, comforters, bumper pads, sheepskins and stuffed toys” in an infant’s sleeping area.

In addition to providing safe environments for children, home daycare operators must pass background checks, must be first aid and CPR certified, must complete and maintain training hours, must meet strict food guidelines and must have a certain amount of approved toys and items in their homes.

Brock said most people do not realize home daycares must be licensed, and said the Shelby County Family Child Care Association is working to spread the word.

“I feel it should be as well known that operating a home daycare without a license is as illegal as running a stop sign,” Brock said. “It is illegal to run a daycare in your home without a license, and it is illegal to advertise to keep a child in your home if you don’t have a license.”

To view the entire list of minimum standards Alabama home daycares must meet, visit Dhr.alabama.gov/documents/MinimumStandards_DayCareFamilyHomes.pdf.