NEW CHILD CARE REGULATIONS

On October 20, 2008, major changes to Maryland's child care licensing regulations went into effect that apply to family child care homes, child care centers, and letter of compliance facilities.  Under these changes, the regulations were completely reorganized in order to make them easier to understand and use.

The key feature of the changes is that regulatory requirements were organized according to similar functions or purposes and then grouped into separate categories.  For example, instead of having various child record-keeping requirements appear in different regulations, all those requirements were pulled together under one regulation called "Child Records."  Child records were then grouped with program records, notification requirements, variance requests, and other areas related to the day-to-day administration of a child care program to form a single chapter (or category) of regulations called "Management and Administration."

The revised regulations have been recodified under the Code of Maryland Regulations (COMAR) to form different subtitles under Title 13A for each type of child care program, as follows:

Family Child Care regulations are now Subtitle 15, Chapters 01—15 (COMAR 13A.15.01—15);

Child Care Center regulations are now Subtitle 16, Chapters 01—19 (COMAR 13A.16.01—19); and

Child Care—Letters of Compliance regulations are now Subtitle 17, Chapters 01—17 (COMAR 13A.17.01—17). 

FAMILY CHILD CARE HOMES:
  -  Click here for the full text of new Subtitle 15.
  -  Click here for a detailed summary of the
      differences between new Subtitle 15 and
      previous COMAR 13A.14.01.
  -  Click here for a sample of the new Family Child Care
      Inspection Report now used for Subtitle 15 compliance
      assessments.

CHILD CARE CENTERS:

  -  Click here for the full text of new Subtitle 16.

  -  Click here for a detailed summary of the differences
      between new Subtitle 16 and previous COMAR
      13A.14.02.
  -  Click here for a sample of the new Child Care Center
      Inspection Report now used for Subtitle 16 compliance
      assessments.

LETTER OF COMPLIANCE FACILITIES: