For childcare centers, daycares & preschools
The employee handbook your licensing consultant expects to see
Childcare licensing requires documented staff orientation on written policies — and your handbook plus signed acknowledgments is exactly that evidence. Generate one with the childcare-specific policies generic templates never include.
Free to create and preview — $199/year to download and share, 2 updates included.
Why a generic employee handbook fails a licensing visit
State childcare rules (like Georgia's Bright from the Start / DECAL rules) don't just regulate your center — they bind your staff personally: mandated reporting deadlines, the prohibited-discipline list, safe-sleep rules, background-check and arrest-disclosure duties, transportation double-checks. Licensing consultants pull personnel files and look for evidence each employee was oriented on these policies. A template handbook from a design tool has none of them — ours generates every one, plus your state's employment-law supplement.
Nine childcare-specific policy modules, generated alongside your complete multi-state handbook:
Reporting Suspected Child Abuse or Neglect
Every childcare employee is personally a mandated reporter in every state — the single highest-stakes policy in a center's handbook.
Background Checks & Duty to Disclose
Fingerprint-based comprehensive records checks before child contact, periodic rechecks, and an immediate arrest self-disclosure duty (the center must report within 24 hours).
Required Training & Certifications
Pre-assignment orientation, first-year health & safety training, annual clock hours, and CPR/first-aid currency — documented, because licensing consultants audit the file.
Guiding Children's Behavior: What We Never Do
The licensing never-do list — corporal punishment, isolation, food/nap/bathroom punishment, restraint — where a single violation is license-citation and termination territory.
Infant Safe Sleep
Back-to-sleep, bare cribs, no swaddling without physician orders — rules that bind staff directly and appear in every licensing inspection.
Giving Medication to Children
No medication without written authorization, original containers, immediate logging, locked storage — the employee-duty summary of the licensing medication rules.
Transporting Children
Passenger checklists at every load/unload and the double vehicle check — the rules that exist because children have died in vehicles.
Supervising Children
Active supervision duties — sight-and-sound positioning, transition counts, ratio escalation, the closing walkthrough — the most-cited category in licensing visits.
Working in a Licensed Program
The licensing overlay on everyday policies: zero tolerance for impairment around children, child-record confidentiality, truthful licensing records, inspection cooperation, and scheduling caps.
Plus the full multi-state employment handbook: 51 jurisdictions of sick leave, final pay, breaks, leave, and required policies — statute-cited.
Common questions
Does licensing actually require an employee handbook?
Usually not by that name — what rules like DECAL's require is documented staff orientation on written policies, before assignment, with evidence in the personnel file. A handbook with signed acknowledgments is how centers actually satisfy and prove that. That's exactly what HandbookHQ generates.
Which childcare rules does it cover?
Mandated reporting (with your state's deadline and the personal criminal liability explained), fingerprint background checks and arrest self-disclosure, training and CPR currency, the prohibited-discipline list, infant safe sleep, medication administration, transporting children, active supervision, and licensed-program conduct standards — plus every general employment policy your states require.
We're in a state other than Georgia — does it still work?
Yes. The childcare modules are written to be true nationwide (they're grounded in the federal CCDBG requirements every licensed program shares), with state-specific licensing citations for Georgia, Texas, California, Florida, and New York today and more shipping. Your employment-law supplement covers all 50 states + DC.
HandbookHQ
$199/year
Complete handbook + industry modules + state supplements + acknowledgments + 2 updates a year. Free to create and preview.
Start with the free checkHandbookHQ is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Industry modules are drafted against published licensing rules and statutes (citations included) and are pending attorney review; consult a licensed attorney about your specific situation.