We needed for him to be comfortable there. As a Newsday investigative series has found, this is not an entirely reliable indicator of quality because family and group family day care facilities are rarely inspected after their initial licensing, and complaints in some cases have been written off as unsubstantiated after only cursory investigation by the state. Use the information you get from the state as a negative indicator. You probably want to stay away from centers with large numbers of substantiated complaints in areas such as supervision of children. But the lack of a large number of substantiated complaints does not translate into a quality day care facility.
Official accreditation can also give parents some reassurance of a center's quality.
A number of private nonprofit organizations, including the National Association for the Education of Young Children, headquartered in Washington, D.C., set standards for such things as ratios of staff to children, and physical safety. But even an accredited center is not guaranteed to be safe or to offer excellent care, and because so few centers have sought accreditation, one that is not accredited is not necessarily performing under par. The National Association for the Education of Young Children, the most widely recognized accrediting organization, reports that just 8 percent of licensed day care facilities, including family day care, in New York State have sought and achieved accreditation as of this year. That compares with a rate of 6 percent of day care facilities nationwide. Safety is a major concern for parents when choosing day care.