Child Care Resource & Referral

Serving Southeastern Minnesota

Child care options

  • Licensed Family Child Care — Family child care is in the home of the child care provider. Family child care providers are independent businesses and, within regulations, define their own business practices and rates. This may vary depending on age of child, location, group size, and experience of provider. Group family child care offers the same home setting for up to fourteen children and requires a second adult when numbers exceed traditional family child care.
  • Child Care Centers — Child care centers provide care for larger numbers of children in separate buildings, churches, or schools. Children of the same age are grouped together. To accommodate the larger numbers, center staff usually follow a plan of regularly scheduled activities, such as meal times and outdoor play.
  • Preschool/Nursery Programs — Preschool/nursery school programs offer part-day, and often part-week, programming for children between the ages of two-and-a-half and five. Preschool/nursery schools are typically used in conjunction with other child care.
  • Head Start — A child development preschool program designed to promote the growth and development of children from low-income families. Children ages three to five years attend.
  • School Age Child Care Programs — School age programs operate in a variety of settings such as schools, churches, recreation centers, and homes. Care is primarily for kindergarten through sixth grade, before and after school, and often when school is not in session. Depending on the location, the program may or may not be regulated.
  • Legal Nonlicensed Child Care — Legally unlicensed home caregivers provide care for their own children, related children, and children from one unrelated family in the home of the caregiver. The caregivers are often friends, neighbors or relatives. There are no limits on group size or the number of young children in care.