Explore careers in home child care!

If you love working with children and want to make a powerful impact on their growth and development, then child care might be a great career for you.

Explore careers in home child care!

If you love working with children and want to make a powerful impact on their growth and development, then child care might be a great career for you.

What Is Home Child Care?

Early childhood educator Valeria Holloway participates in a learning activity with her students

Home-based child care professionals play an essential role in nurturing children and supporting the families in their local communities. If you’re interested in starting your own business in the early childhood field or you already provide care to young children for friends or family, home-based child care might be an exciting opportunity for you.

There are many different kinds of child care programs and child care professionals may care for a variety of different age groups, from infants to toddlers to older children in after-school programs. The state of New Mexico provides a wide variety of incentives and supports to home-based child care providers, which means there’s never been a better time to join the field.

Early childhood entrepreneur Maria Melendez poses in her classroom with her students

Featured Professional: Maria

“I help all the teachers to grow together with me, getting classes at the college, working right with the kids, doing our best.”

Maria Melendez has been in the early childhood business for about 25 years, and she has never stopped growing. What began with Maria caring for children in her home grew into a larger home-based business with employees and a 5-STAR quality rating. Then she grew some more, becoming the owner of multiple child care centers in the Roswell area.

Read Maria’s Story

Home Child Care Career Pathways

Registered Homes

Registered homes have the least requirements and are a great place to start out when providing home child care. For this type of business, you can care for up to four children who don’t live in your home (including up to two children under the age of 2). Registering your home child care business requires a home inspection and fingerprint background check. To maintain your status as a registered home, you’ll need to participate in yearly professional development training. Learn more about the requirements for registered homes on the ECECD website.

Registering your home as a child care professional provides some important benefits, including the opportunity to be reimbursed by the state for the care you provide. Since the majority of New Mexico families with young children are eligible for child care assistance, state reimbursement can help provide reliable income for your business, even for families who might not otherwise be able to afford child care services.

Registered home care providers are also eligible to receive reimbursement for healthy meals and snacks they serve through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). This benefit can help offset the cost of feeding growing kids nutritious meals while they’re in your care.

Licensed Homes

Licensed home providers can care for up to six children (including up to two children under the age of two). Licensed home providers must meet additional quality and training requirements compared to registered homes. Licensed home providers can also take part in FOCUS On Young Children’s Learning, New Mexico’s Tiered Quality Rating and Improvement System, to earn STAR ratings. Becoming a licensed home care provider increases the amount you can be reimbursed for each child in your care who receives a state subsidy.

Licensed Group Homes

Licensed group home providers can care for up to 12 children. This is a larger type of home-based child care business that requires hiring additional child care providers to assist you. For providers looking to expand their home-based businesses, this pathway can be a great way to grow without taking the larger step of opening a child care center.

Early childhood educator Norma Gutierrez reads a book to students in her home.

How Do I Know Home Child Care Is Right for Me?

If you love working with children and want to make a powerful impact on their future success while supporting your local community, then home child care might be a great career for you. However, here are a few things to keep in mind as you consider this career.

Working with young children every day can be a very physically active job. You’ll spend most of your working hours day on your feet and will be expected to keep up with one or more small children. If you would prefer a career with less physical activity but still want to work in early childhood, there are coordinator positions in child care and PreK programs that might be a good fit.

Running a home child care is a business, which means it includes many administrative tasks and requires you to maintain your registration or licensure. If you want to work with young children but aren’t interested in managing your own business, there are many open positions in center-based child cares across New Mexico.

Learn More About Home Child Care Opportunities

Career Stories

Discover stories of real New Mexico professionals in home child care.

Norma Gutierrez

Registered Home Child Care Provider
Las Cruces

Read Norma’s Story

Valeria Holloway

Early Childhood Educator
Las Cruces

Read Valeria’s Story

Professional Supports

In New Mexico, higher education scholarships are available for early childhood professionals who work 20 hours a week or more in one of the following settings:

State-funded PreK or early PreK program in a community-based or public school setting;
Head Start or Early Head Start;
State-funded Home Visiting Program; or
Family Infant Toddler (FIT) program

Scholarships cover 100% of tuition and book fees for the following educational pathways:

An associate’s degree (AA) in early childhood education or a New Mexico Child Development Certificate (CDC)
Home Visitors and FIT (Early Intervention) providers pursuing an AA in early childhood education, social work, counseling, or related field
Family/home child care professionals seeking The Child Development Certificate, or an associate’s or bachelor's degree in early childhood education
Child care and PreK professionals pursuing a bachelor’s degree (BA) in early childhood education, including PreK–12 Special Education licensure for PreK educators in public school settings
Home Visitors/FIT providers pursuing a BA in early childhood education, social work, counseling, or related field

Additional eligibility requirements for early childhood scholarships include:

Maintaining a minimum of six credit hours per school year
Maintaining a C grade or higher in all classes

For more information about early childhood scholarships in New Mexico, download the program brochure. You can also find instructional content related to these scholarships in the following videos:

To find eligible early childhood education programs near you, refer to ECECD’s Professional Development Pathway brochure (listings for educator preparation programs begins on page 7 of the document).

Early childhood educators in New Mexico may be eligible to receive a one-time incentive payment of $1,500 if they are certified bilingual.

Educators need to provide one of the following forms of documentation to apply for bilingual incentive pay:

Passed PRAXIS-TESOL
Passed La Prueba
Bilingual seal on High School Diploma
Tribal/Pueblo/Nation Certification for indigenous languages
Other document showing proficiency

For more information about bilingual incentive pay, download the program brochure, or apply online.

 The state of New Mexico funds and provides many tools to help child care providers manage and streamline the administrative side of their businesses. These include:

EPICS Child Care Provider Dashboard
The Enterprise Provider Information and Constituent Services (EPICS) Dashboard allows child care providers to accept or decline child care contracts and to manage employee/caregiver records.
Elevate New Mexico Child Care
Elevate New Mexico is an all-in-one business application with tools that are specifically designed to help registered and licensed homes and smaller child care centers (up to 50 capacity) run their child care business. Elevate NM tools include 24/7 support, website development and marketing, and business management software. Elevate New Mexico is provided through a collaboration between ECECD and Wonderschool.
Child Care Business Toolkit
The Child Care Business Toolkit is a shared services platform with a variety of resources to support child care providers. to provide a shared services platform to support child care providers. The toolkit contains thousands of practical and customizable resources, including sample policies, procedures, handbooks, forms, job descriptions, interview guides, and more. The toolkit is offered through a partnership between ECECD and CCA Global Partners.
Waterford UPSTART
Waterford UPSTART is an in-home kindergarten-readiness program to help children develop the foundational academic and cognitive skills needed for school success. With funds made available by the legislature and allocated to ECECD, additional early learning providers (including Head Start and Community-Based providers) have an opportunity to participate at no cost. Because funding is limited, participation will be on a first-come, first-served basis and based on local, identified needs.
Child Care Finder
New Mexico child care providers can claim a free New Mexico Child Care Finder provider account and receive support in setting up a professional business listing. The Child Care Finder allows parents and caregivers to search for one of the 1000+ child care programs statewide, filtering by proximity, age of child, quality rating, tuition, language, program type, and more.
QUORUM
Quorum is a free online training program for early childhood educators in New Mexico that provides engaging professional development courses in English and Spanish.
FOCUS Tiered Quality Rating and Improvement System
FOCUS on Young Children’s Learning is a tiered quality rating and improvement system (TQRIS) that works to strengthen early childhood programs serving children and their families in New Mexico. Benefits for providers participating in this program include an increase of the per-child subsidy rate provided upon successful verification of each subsequent star level, a consultant-guided pathway to continuous improvement with adaptive support to meet program needs, access to on-site or community-based training, professional development, and technical assistance, and supportive networking opportunities among providers.

Early Childhood Monthly Community Calls 
Join ECECD Secretary Groginsky and special guests on the first Tuesday of the month from 8 to 9 a.m. to discuss important issues pertaining to the New Mexico early childhood community. Watch the community call via ECECD's Facebook page.
ECECD Weekly Newsletter 
This community newsletter includes announcements, events, health and safety requirements, and professional development opportunities.
Early Childhood Mentor Network 
The Early Childhood Mentor Network (ECMN), under the guidance of CNM Ingenuity, is a collaborative group of experienced early childhood teachers serving as mentors to practicum students and to those new in their careers.

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