Prince William County, VA Building Safety: Childcare Center Rules (2026)

County Code Chapter 6 applies to "child care facilities," defined in § 6-1 as any commercial or residential structure used to provide child care services, but the definition carves out any facility already licensed by the state as a child care facility and any facility run by a religious institution exempt from that state licensure. "Child care services" is defined as regular care, protection and guidance provided to unrelated children away from the child's own home for part of the day, at least four days a week.

Section 6-2(a) requires that at all times paid child care services are being provided in a covered facility, every person providing that care must have successfully completed a certified pediatric CPR training course or a certified infant and child CPR course before providing services. Subsection (b) requires ongoing proficiency through periodic retraining no less often than every two years, and subsection (c) ties enforcement to the zoning process: at initial application for zoning approval to run child care services, and at every renewal, facility representatives must give the zoning administrator evidence satisfactory to that office that the CPR training has been obtained and proficiency maintained by everyone currently providing care.

Section 6-3 makes clear these CPR duties are additional to, not a substitute for, every other applicable state and local requirement, including state child care licensing where it applies. Section 6-4 phased the rule in: it applied immediately to facilities that began operating on or after the May 7, 1996 effective date, while facilities already operating could continue until their next zoning-approval renewal or one year after the effective date, whichever came first.