how do I go about checking on a daycare center to see for the care and safety of my child.

Before you put your child into a day care center, you want to make sure that you call the facility and ask about personal visits to the facility.  They should have a policy that you could drop in unannounced at any time to check out the facility.  That means that the center isn't prone to hiding things from anyone.  If they schedule your visit, that may indicate they want time to prepare everything to look good or to prompt the children about the coming visitor and how to behave.

Once you can go into the facility be careful to take notes about the cleanliness of the facility while you look at the classrooms and where the children play. Watch the interaction between the children and the preschool staff.  Is it natural within an encouraging environment, or do the children seem unhappy?

At one child care facility I visited with my grandson, over 50 preschoolers played outside attended by one pregnant woman who spent most of her time talking to a little boy who's jacket was sitting in a muddy puddle.  When I asked where the other aides were, she told me she really didn't know.  When I asked what her position was, she said she was just a parent who had come to help because her son, the little boy she was talking to, didn't like coming there.  The jacket had been dropped into the puddle earlier that day, but no one, not even the staff, bothered to move it all day.

When I went to look for other staff members, they were in the front office eating and laughing.  My interruption seemed to bother them once they allowed me to interrupt their non-work related conversation.  Needless to say, my grandson did not stay there.

Go back to the facility for at least three unannounced visits to help you get the right impression about the staff and the cirriculum.  Call the board that has licensed that facility to check about complaints and their safety record.  Come back when it's time for children to leave the facility and talk to some of the parents as they pick up their children;  ask their opinion about the teachers, the things taught there, and how their children feel about being there. 

Call the local police and ask them how many calls they've made to that facility during business hours.  Ask if paramedics have ever been sent there.  This gives you an idea of the safety record the facility has.  You can also ask them to see yearly required reports to Workers Comp about accidents that have happened over the past year.

You also need to know if the background checks have been completed on all of the staff members so be sure to ask about that.  If they haven't returned from the state reporting facility yet, ask what measures are put into place to protect your child.

If you decide to allow your child to attend the school, don't let your diligence down there.  All in all, your best bet is to talk to your child about how they feel there, and ask a lot of questions about how they are treated there.  Go to pick them up a few minutes early and watch how the staff reacts to that.  Is it 'no big deal' and the program goes on? Or does it seem to fluster them?  If so, ask them why it would do so.

Make a mid-day lunch time visit just to sit and watch your child interact with the other kids, and check during the nap time too, and be observant to see how the children are treated during that time period.

You can make sure that your child's preschool staff understand clearly that you will be an active participant in their education, and this will help to let everyone know that you are serious not only about their education, but about their safety at school as well.