Wyoming

Staff-child ratios (centers)

Requirements

Annual training

Anyone providing direct care or counted in ratio more than 24 hours in any month must complete at least 12 training credits annually in early learning/child development (Chapter 11, Section 4(c)); 8 health and safety credits are required every 2 years, and all staff must maintain current pediatric and adult first aid and CPR certification with in-person skills demonstration.

Lead teacher

In child care centers, staff other than the director and assistant director must be at least 16 years of age and complete approved pre-service training within 3 months of hire and before providing unsupervised care (Chapter 11, Sections 2-4); Wyoming's rules do not set an education credential requirement for regular caregivers.

Director

A center director must be at least 21, have a high school diploma or equivalent certificate, and have any combination of education and experience equivalent to one year in early childhood management, early childhood education, child development, or a related field (Chapter 11, Section 3(f)).

Worth knowing

Wyoming's table expresses group limits as the maximum with 3 staff: infants 1:4 (2 staff:8; 3 staff:10 max); 1-year-olds 1:5 (max 12); 2-year-olds 1:8 (max 18); 3-4-year-olds 1:12 (max 30); school-age 5+ 1:18 (max 40). Mixed-age options exist (e.g., 1:10 with no more than 2 children under 2). Group size may also be limited by room capacity. Rules updated April 2026; Chapter 11 PDF is distributed via Google Drive links on the DFS licensing rules page.

Compliance

Background checks

Owners, directors, adult staff, substitutes, volunteers present during operating hours, and household members 18+ must clear, before working or residing in the facility: a Wyoming Central Registry abuse/neglect check plus registries of states lived in during the past five years, NCIC National Sex Offender Registry and state sex-offender checks, a full FBI fingerprint-based national criminal history check, and Wyoming and out-of-state criminal history checks (ch. 11 § 3(g)). The registry and sex-offender checks are annual, while FBI, state criminal, and NSOR checks recur every five years.

Mandated reporting

Wyoming has universal mandatory reporting: under Wyo. Stat. § 14-3-205 all persons who know or have reasonable cause to believe a child has been abused or neglected must report as soon as possible, so all child care staff are reporters; recognition and mandatory reporting of suspected abuse is a required pre-service training topic (ch. 11 § 4(a)(ii)(H)).

First aid & CPR

All staff must maintain current certification in both pediatric and adult first aid and pediatric and adult CPR through Department-approved training that includes an in-person skills demonstration with a certified instructor (ch. 11 § 4(c)(i)(B)); the topic is also part of required pre-service training.

Health & safety training

Owners/directors must complete approved pre-service training before license issuance and other staff within three months of hire and before providing unsupervised care, covering the CCDBG topics (emergency preparedness, premises safety, sanitation/hazardous materials, first aid/CPR, medication, SIDS/safe sleep, infectious disease, abuse recognition and mandatory reporting, shaken baby/abusive head trauma, allergies, transportation, and the Wyoming Early Learning Standards) plus a facility orientation on all policies and licensing rules (ch. 11 § 4(a)-(b)). Direct-care staff then complete 12 training credits annually, including 8 health and safety credits every two years.

Operations

Supervision rule

In child care centers and family child care centers outside the director's home, staff must directly supervise children at all times, with naptime staffing relaxed to one person per approved room only while all children are asleep and in clear view; in homes, awake infants and toddlers require direct supervision at all times, 3-4-year-olds in adjacent areas must be visually observed every few minutes, and children 5+ must be within hearing with staff close enough to intervene (ch. 11 § 2(c)). All children must be on the same building level as staff, and children 4+ may use the bathroom unaccompanied only one at a time, heard at all times and checked every few minutes.

Record-keeping

Complete administrative, staff, and child records must be maintained on-site and retained at least three years, including current attendance records for children and staff by care area and emergency drill logs (ch. 11 § 6). Each child's file, completed by the parent before care begins, must hold contacts, authorized pick-up and emergency persons, physician/dentist, health information and care plans, reports of injuries requiring physician treatment, immunization records per W.S. 14-4-116, and medication and field trip authorizations; staff records document training hours and all background check results.

Inspections

A minimum of one annual unannounced and one annual announced licensing inspection is required of all facilities, with additional scheduled or unscheduled visits to investigate complaints or monitor compliance (Rules ch. 2 § 5); annual fire, food safety, and health/sanitation inspections are required on top of the Department's inspections.

Worth knowing: DFS publishes its child care rules as chapter PDFs linked from dfs.wyo.gov (hosted on Google Drive); citations are to Chapter 11 (Health and Safety Requirements for All Facility Types) and Chapter 2 (Licensing Process). Chapters 4-7 of the rule set are repealed.

Family & home child care

Wyoming DFS Child Care Licensing Rules, Chapters 1-3 and 8-11 (updated April 2026); W.S. 14-4-101 et seq.

Family Child Care Home (FCCH) license

A license to provide care for 3 to 10 children in the provider's own home without additional staff (Wyoming DFS license types).

Family Child Care Center (FCCC) license

A license to provide care for a maximum of 15 children in the provider's home or another building in which the provider does not reside, with one additional staff member required whenever more than 10 children are present (Wyoming DFS license types). Programs with 16 or more children need a Child Care Center license.

Provider training

All new staff and directors complete pre-service training in 12 required topics (health and safety, fire safety, first aid and pediatric/adult CPR, etc.); ongoing training is 32 credits over each two-year cycle — 8 core credits in specified health/safety areas plus 24 elective credits in early learning and child development — and staff working with infants/toddlers need at least 4 hours of specialized infant or toddler training every two years (Wyoming DFS child care provider requirements).

Worth knowing

Published DFS materials state the FCCH range as 3-10 children without additional staff but do not state on the fetched pages whether the provider's own children count toward the 10, and per-age infant limits are set in the DFS rules chapters (hosted as documents) that could not be parsed here — both are therefore left null. DFS licensing rule chapters 4-7 were repealed; current substantive requirements sit mainly in Chapter 11 (Health and Safety Requirements for All Facility Types, updated April 2026).