What We Do

Child Care Licensing (CCL) works to promote the health, safety, and well-being of children and youth in daycare as well as in foster care and other types of 24-hour childcare. CCL achieves this by:

  • Regulating childcare operations and child-placing agencies*.
  • Issuing permits and checking to make sure operations and agencies comply with licensing standards, rules, and laws.
  • Giving technical assistance to help childcare providers meet licensing standards, rules, and laws.
  • Investigating reports of violations of minimum standards in daycare and residential childcare.
  • Educating parents and others about choosing regulated childcare and how each operation complies with state standards.

On September 1, 2017, the regulatory functions of Child Care Licensing, including licensure of providers, transferred to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Investigative functions of Child Care Licensing remain at DFPS in the Investigations program.


*Private agency that places children in its own foster/adoptive homes