How to Find a Daycare In Northern Nevada Step 3: Licensing Information

Perform a Licensing Background Check

So, you've researched, called and interviewed prospective daycares and finally decided on someone you feel confident will care for your child.

If they're licensed, which I would highly advise you stick with licensed daycare providers,  you'll want to check up on their stats. Washoe County's Child Care & Early Childhood Development Services is a government agency that uses "the laws and regulations set by the State and the County to insure a minimum level of care is provided to children to maintain and facilitate their normal development, health, safety, and welfare."

They have regulations and laws that they uphold by performing bi-annual inspections of in-home daycares. The inspection results are available online at

Washoe County's Child Care Inspection Web Portal

• To search for an in-home daycare provider, type in their last name only. Not the name of their daycare, but the last name of the person who is licensed.


• For daycare centers, type in the name of the daycare facility.


• If you can't find their licensing information via the website, call the helpful Child Care Licensing Unit at 337-4470.

Now you get to look into all the daycare's inspections.

Keep your eye out for any bold non-compliances and read those notes. You want to avoid notes such as this:

The facility's operation did not promote the health, safety, and welfare of children as evidenced by upon this

workers arrival a 4 year old child answered the door and the childcare provider was unaware of this workers

presence as she was in another room. The care provider had left the children unattended for approxiamtelyfor 14

minutes. She was unaware that the children could unlock the door.

Compliance compliance compliance is all you want to see.

What we've found when checking the licenses is that it either confirms any suspicions we've had or solidifies our decision. Also, it's always a little scary taking someone's word for it when they say they're licensed. Before we knew we could check up on people's licensing and inspections we just took their word for it, never seeing  a license or having any idea what's required to be licensed.

It's not a bad idea to double check and make sure the person you're paying a fraction of your income and trusting your first-born to is doing what they say they are.

Check check and double check again.  Take advantage of this service, it's been put in place for a reason.

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We interviewed a few daycares that we decided against and just when we thought we were doomed and would have to compromise on a crappy situation we didn't feel comfortable with, we found a craigslist posting. Two hours later we were sitting in this woman's living room asking if we could sign Gwen up right then and there.

When we checked her licensing information, which came up perfect in everyway, I looked up all the other people we had met and turned down. Every single licensing inspection reiterated our concerns and made us even more certain of our decisions.

It's a good idea to check those licensing reports.

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This is Part 3 in a series of How to Find a Daycare in Northern Nevada

You can find the other parts here:

How to Find a Daycare in Northern Nevada Step 1: Research

How to Find a Daycare in Northern Nevada Step 2: Interview