Molly Robinson was hours away from opening her childcare center, which was the culmination of decades in the field, yet she feared it was all about to fall apart.
Her childcare center, The Farmhouse, was set to open in late February, becoming one of the few new childcare centers in Bloomington to open in the last 15 years. But the week before opening, as the staff were putting finishing touches in classrooms, Robinson was in a panic. Some of the employees’ background checks were still pending.
She had submitted all of the documents in early December, thinking they would be cleared in a matter of weeks. But the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) had yet to fully process them. Because it was a new center, if the checks were not completed by that afternoon, Robinson would not be able to receive the license she needed to open.
Robinson had already pushed opening three weeks in part because of this delay, losing thousands of dollars. Parents had taken their children out of other childcare centers in order to enroll at The Farmhouse. She gave families a week of free tuition to account for the inconvenience.
Her DCFS licensing representative and a supervisor both told Robinson that their hands were tied, she recalled. Robinson even phoned the town’s mayor. Desperate and feeling she had nothing to lose, she wrote a script, gathered her staff around her and pressed record on her phone.
“If we can’t open soon,” Robinson said in a video she posted to Facebook, “we risk losing the families who have trusted us with their children. We risk losing our staff because we can’t pay salaries without opening. And we risk losing something we’ve spent five years building. … This childcare crisis cannot continue to fall on providers to solve.”
DCFS is federally required to conduct initial and regular background checks for people who work in childcare facilities. The process requires checks of a state child abuse database and state and federal sex offender registries, as well as fingerprinting for state and federal criminal history checks.
The department has faced chronic staffing issues amid federal changes that added more requirements to background checks. The state has also failed to implement a law that allows childcare operators to use third-party vendors to collect the fingerprints needed during the background screenings. State officials said in a statement that they have been “actively working” on a process to carry out this law.
The Illinois Department of Early Childhood (IDEC), which was created by the Pritzker administration and launched this summer, is expected to take over the responsibility of these background checks in July 2027. IDEC Secretary Teresa Ramos, during an August public meeting about the department’s transition, acknowledged there are “pain points” regarding the state’s background check process.
IDEC and DCFS leadership declined to be interviewed for this story.
“IDEC and DCFS are working closely to continue to improve the background check process to help child care providers efficiently hire and onboard their staff to meet the needs of children and families,” the departments said in a joint statement. “There is more work to do, and DCFS has undertaken extensive process mapping to identify opportunities to improve and modernize the authorization process … Our priority is to make the process more effective and efficient for providers while preserving the thorough review, accountability, and protections necessary.”
The federal Child Care and Development Block Grant requires these checks to be completed in 45 days. Yet childcare directors say they are waiting longer than that — at times months — for their employees’ background checks to be approved, the Illinois Answers Project found.
These ongoing delays have consequences, according to interviews with childcare owners and operators. Before new hires can be in the presence of children, they need to have certain background checks cleared. This means childcare businesses, at times, have been forced to reduce class sizes because they don’t have enough employees to meet the state’s required staffing ratios. Some centers are at risk of losing federal funding due to not keeping up with enrollment requirements.
Childcare access is already in a precarious state. Around the time The Farmhouse worked to open its doors, three childcare centers in Bloomington-Normal closed. According to a 2026 industry report, Illinois had 371,620 licensed childcare slots available for a potential 586,490 children. The state faces a supply gap of 37% compared to the nationwide figure of 27%.
In just a few hours, Robinson’s February video sparked a barrage of messages from residents, asking who they should call to show support. It garnered a total of 45,000 views. Around 4:30p.m. that Friday, Robinson’s phone lit up; the caller ID read “DCFS.” She could open on Monday.
A problem years in the making
In 2014, the federal government imposed stricter requirements for background checks, resulting in states needing additional checks for childcare workers. The goal was to weed out individuals with a history of crimes.
States had until 2018 to implement these new rules. But many struggled, including Illinois.
DCFS officials have, over the years, blamed the delays on these requirements in reports to the General Assembly.
A 2018 report by the Inspector General (IG) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found DCFS had failed to carry out certain aspects of the new law due to a lack of funding and staff to process background checks. The IG audited 30 Illinois childcare facilities two years later. Twelve of them were out of compliance.
“By not ensuring that all childcare staff members who supervised or had routine unsupervised contact with children passed all initial or recurring criminal background checks within the last 5 years,” the report stated, “Illinois potentially jeopardized the safety of children in its care.”
The background check unit has faced staffing issues since at least 2019. According to an HHS spokesperson, Illinois gained full compliance with the new rules in 2021. But doing so “strained resources” for the background check unit, according to DCFS’ reports to the General Assembly. In a 2025 report, DCFS said the new requirements increased the background check unit’s workload by 30%.
In early August, DCFS said there were 32 full-time employees working for the background check unit with 12 vacant positions, according to data obtained by a public-records request. A spokesperson said IDEC plans to add two positions to the unit.
DCFS said it received more than 52,500 authorizations for childcare homes and centers in fiscal year 2026. Of those, the agency cleared just under 40,000, or about 75%. The department said preliminary internal records show that as of June 30 (the end of the 2026 fiscal year) it had 2,271 background-check requests from childcare facilities, or about 4% of the total it had received that year, that it had not yet processed.
A spokesperson for DCFS and IDEC said that this data includes every authorization form DCFS received, including forms that needed to be resubmitted due to missing or incorrect information. DCFS does not currently have the ability to link any resubmission forms to its original, the spokesperson said, which means that comparing the number of forms received against clearances results in an “artificially low completion rate.” IDEC plans to improve workflows and “modernize” the process to better track this information.
A DCFS spokesperson said that background checks are completed in about 45 days “under typical circumstances.” An estimated 30% of the submitted forms require some type of correction before moving forward, the spokesperson said, and processing could take longer if fingerprints need to be resubmitted or if there is any information that needs additional review.
Following Illinois Answers’ inquiry, state officials said they reviewed 20 of the longest current pending authorizations. All of them were waiting for decisions required by the employer, officials said. This included an employer’s response to a background check finding and if they wanted to move forward with this prospective employee.
“A pending authorization should not be interpreted as having been awaiting DCFS action for the entire time it has been pending,” a spokesperson said.
In a response to a public-records request, DCFS provided data that showed there were 278 background check authorizations pending for 234 providers as of May 18. Those facilities had waited a median of 81 days for background checks to be approved, Illinois Answers found.
As of June 30, there were 358 background check authorizations pending for 308 childcare operators. The median wait time was 55 days. More than half of the authorizations had been pending for longer than 45 days. Some providers had been waiting more than a year.
It’s unclear how wait times have fluctuated over the years. A DCFS spokesperson said the department does not have historical data on processing delays. The department also “recognizes an opportunity to improve the data tracking,” the spokesperson said.
Many of the childcare administrators who spoke to Illinois Answers said their background checks took longer than 45 days. Janet O’Connell, a former DCFS licensing representative who now has a consulting firm that helps childcare businesses understand state regulations, said childcare operators told her they have waited as long as six to nine months.
Illinois Answers interviewed two childcare administrators who as of DCFS’s June 30 data had authorizations pending for more than 500 days. Both said they have received notifications from DCFS, in the form of mailed letters, that background check forms had missing information or were filled out incorrectly.
Chad and Tiffany Bell, who own and operate Blue Jays Learning Center in central Illinois, said they have been told by DCFS that an employee’s handwriting was illegible or the ink they used to fill out the form was too light. Other times, Chad Bell said, the document had become illegible because it had been faxed too many times. The Bells said they have multiple authorizations pending, one since June 15.
Erica Bell (no relation to Chad and Tiffany), the CEO of Enchanted Minds Academy in East St. Louis, said there have been times when she has received notifications from DCFS that forms are filled out incorrectly but when she has reexamined them “all of the boxes are checked.”
“I’m not sure what’s going on with that department but it’s frustrating,” she said.
The Illinois Head Start Association (IHSA) conducted a survey of its centers about these delays in April. Nearly half of the 75 respondents said they had waited at least 46 days for background checks to clear, and about 9% said they waited longer than three months. The vast majority of delayed background checks were for teaching positions.
Lauri Morrison-Frichtl, IHSA’s executive director, said some of its centers, which provide childcare and preschool to low-income families, can’t operate at full capacity because they’re waiting for employee background checks.
Federal rules require new hires to pass at least one of two criminal background checks before being able to work at the facility, which they can then do under supervision by another employee until both have been cleared.
This wasn’t always the case. Previously, employees could start working while their background checks were being processed, under the direct supervision of a staff member. In Illinois, that stopped in May 2023.
That puts Head Start centers at risk of losing federal funding, Morrison-Frichtl said.
The state has specific staff-to-child ratios that vary depending on the age of the children and the type of facility. If there aren’t enough staff members eligible to work to meet those ratios, the centers can’t operate at full capacity. Federal regulations require Head Start centers maintain an enrollment level of 97%. If they fall below that threshold, the federal government could designate them as “chronically underenrolled” and potentially withhold or reduce annual funding.
“It’s high stakes for our providers,” Morrison-Frichtl said.
The delays make other childcare administrators feel they are in a bind: They need to fill an open position – but doing so could take weeks. And that could potentially affect access.
“If we’re down staff, then we have to say, ‘Well, we can’t take your kids today,’” said Emily Parac, owner of Little Hearts of Clinton Daycare Center, which opened in 2025. The space is large enough to accommodate 43 children, but Parac said she hasn’t been able to fully staff the center due pending background checks, and had only enrolled 30 kids as of August.
Stephanie Stuart, chief communications officer for Parkland College, said background check delays created operational challenges for the community college’s childcare center because qualified hires couldn’t start working until the checks were complete. The college closed the 35-year-old center in June, citing ongoing financial challenges in addition to struggles with hiring and retaining childcare staff.
New laws aim to ease the burden — but one hasn’t been implemented
Gov. JB Pritzker signed legislation in June that seeks to ease the burden on childcare operators hiring employees already working in the field. Starting next year, background checks will be tied to the individual instead of the childcare facility, allowing workers who have already cleared background checks to bypass the process when they change jobs.
It’s among a series of changes that the state has said would help with the delays, which IDEC department leaders have publicly acknowledged to be a “pain point.”
Another new law allows childcare facilities to use state-approved third-party vendors to collect fingerprints for criminal background checks, instead of relying solely on DCFS. But according to an internal IDEC email exchange in May that Illinois Answers obtained in response to a public-records request, the agency has not begun processing these types of background checks. On Aug. 14, a DCFS spokesperson confirmed the department “has not processed any third-party background checks.”
A DCFS and IDEC spokesperson said the implementation of this law “requires extensive coordination among multiple agencies and independent systems.” The state does not have a date for when this law will be implemented.
“We know that background checks are taking too long, and they have to be redone every time an employee starts a new job,” IDEC Chief of Staff Gwen Peebles said during a meeting with childcare workers in May. “It’s burdensome, and it’s taking away from providers who need to be doing other things, like caring for children.”
Robinson, the Bloomington childcare center owner, said she hopes the state finds a better solution, not one that is a “Band-aid” fix. About six months after opening, Robinson said background checks remain “hit or miss.” Some take two weeks, she said, while others have dragged out to 90 days.
In September, Robinson said she was waiting on three new employees’ background checks, which she submitted to DCFS in early July. As a result, The Farmhouse isn’t able to operate two of its seven classrooms, which could care for about an additional 20 children. She fears these hires could leave for other jobs and that the center will start “hemorrhaging” money if they can’t open those classrooms.
“As providers, people are mad at us, because they think that we’re gouging prices. They’re mad at us because we have to close classrooms when we don’t have enough staff,” Robinson said.
“We are the bad guy — when our hands are tied.”
This story was made possible by a grant from The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.
This article first appeared on Illinois Answers Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.