Licensing Measurement

approach worked very well when there were not many
programs to be monitored and there were sufficient
licensing staff to do the monitoring and conduct the
inspections.
This all started to change in the 1980’s when Instrument
Based Program Monitoring (IPM) was introduced and
started to be adopted by state licensing agencies
throughout the United States. Just as a footnote, this
brief history is pertinent to the USA and does not include
other countries although the Canadian Provinces have
followed a similar route as the USA. The reason for the
introduction of an IPM approach was the tremendous
increase in early care and education programs in the
1960’s and 1970’s. It was difficult for licensing staff to
keep up with the increased number of programs in their
monitoring efforts. There needed to be a more effective
and efficient methodology to be employed to deal with
these increases.
A very influential paper was written in 1985 and
published in Child Care Quarterly which introduced
IPM along with Licensing Key Indicators, Risk
Assessment (Weighting), and Differential Monitoring
(Abbreviated Inspections). This paper outlined the
various methodologies and their use by a consortium of
states to test the viability of this new approach to
licensing measurement, regulatory compliance, and
program monitoring. Also, the terminology has changed
over the decades. Back in 1985 weighting was used
rather than risk, abbreviated inspections were used rather
than differential monitoring, targeted monitoring, or
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