Child Care Connection & Referral Service
Starting Your Child Care Business
Child Care Connection strives to meet the growing need for quality child care throughout the nine county area. We work to develop additional child care resources and recruit new child care providers. Assistance is provided to individuals interested in caring for children in their home and start-up information is provided to those individuals interested in opening a child care center.
Some of the resources available include:
- Getting Started Provider Packets for centers and homes
- Technical assistance on child development and/or business related issues
- Data on supply and demand in a particular area
- Listing on our child care provider data base
- Information about training opportunities
You may also download the following manuals which are part of the Illinois Child Care Information Series.
Note: These files are large and could take up to 80 seconds to download, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.
Family Child Care Manual [pdf]
Developing Center Programs [pdf]
Starting Points for Family Child Care
Child Care Connection at Illinois Central College offers a "Starting Points Meeting" for family child care providers. The meetings are held bi-monthly at Child Care Connection at the ICC North Peoria Campus, 5407 N University, Poplar Hall. Two meetings each year will be held in Ottawa.
Starting Points Meetings (2009-2010) [pdf]
Individuals who want to work in their own home and stay at home to spend more time with their own children while providing care for others' children could benefit from these sessions. Topics include preparing your home, daily schedules, promoting your business, communicating with parents, tax deductions, keeping records, creating contracts and policies and more.
The sessions are free, but seating is limited.
Please call Ginny at (309) 690-7302 or (800) 421-4371 to register.
DCFS Contact Information
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services is the agency responsible for licensing Child Care Centers and Family Child Care Homes
Office Locations:
Peoria, 5415 N University, Peoria, IL 61614: (309) 693-5400
LaSalle County, Rockford Office: (309) 794-3500
You may call the DCFS office nearest you to obtain a copy of the Licensing Standards or you may download the following:
Licensing Standards for Family Child Care Homes [pdf]