13 Indicators of Quality Child Care: Research Update
This is a study from 2002 done by National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care, University of Colorado and presented to the federal government, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
It was to guide licensing by giving states 13 indicators of quality care in child day care.
The paragraph below tells us more abuse occurs in families than in child day care. That's like saying more crashes occur from the public driving their cars than from planes crashing. OK. But when I give an airline money to fly on their plane I expect attention to safety so I get to my destination in one piece. The same holds if I take my child to a licensed day care. I expect my child to be alive when I come and pick him up. I expect that my child won't have permanent brain damage as a result of being in licensed child day care.
"A major concern of parents when they drop their children off at child care is the safety of their children in the hands of the caregivers. The abuse of children in out-of-home settings has generated a good deal of concern. However, all documented research in this area indicates that fewer instances of abuse occur in child care programs than in homes or residential facilities (Finkelhor & Williams, 1990; Goldman, 1993; Margolin, 1991). If abuse does occur, though, parents must be aware of several signs that are cause for concern. According to research, physical abuse most frequently occurs in the form of excessive discipline, often as a response to prior conflict with the child. Sometimes, excessive discipline may have been inadvertently supported by parental permission for corporal punishment. Although sexual abuse occurs less frequently in centers than in homes, the effects of sexual abuse on the child seems worse in centers. Sexual abuse often involves physical abuse (Schumacher & Carlson, 1999)."
The whole study fails to address the children who were permanently maimed and dead because they were in child day care.
What a study omits is more important than what is included in a study.
The study omits the regulators over licensed day care, your state, county and city governments. "Standards" don't mean anything. "Regulations" don't mean anything without the analysis of the state, county or city government bureaucratic managers.
Studies like this often are paid for by the government. When the government gives out the contracts, the money for the items to be researched are governed by the government manager officials.
I have yet to see a completed study where the state licensing agency said, "Hey, research us managers to see if we are licensing, monitoring, investigating and taking enforcement action per law."
My whistle blower reports on the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) now, the Department of Early Learning (DEL) in terms of child day care licensing, on those thirteen quality items, (through our laws) in 2005 resulted in an incomplete investigation, an investigation to this day that has not been completed. No report as required by law was written.
As they were 86ing my whistle blower reports, the State Auditor in Washington State began to conduct a performance audit on child day care licensing. Our director sent us out a memo that one was coming (how is that an audit?). That's like doing scheduled renewal visits on licensed day care facilities, they can clean up the place, get the felons off the property for a day (well for a couple of hours). That audit never made it past that one heads up memo.
The DSHS Secretary in Washington State, Robin Arnold-Williams, ordered a few of my whistle blower complaints be investigated internally (not from an outside, objective, neutral agency). The investigators before interviewing the supervisor, Darcy Taylor and other licensors promised them before hand that no disciplinary or retaliation action would be taken for speaking to them. Problems were found and then the Secretary's follow up order to do a more complete and systemic investigation may have gone by the wayside as no such record has been released to me.
It's better for the public to know rather than to not know. The government websites including the non-profit agencies' websites don't provide the most vital information that the public needs to know about licensed child day care facilities.
I told parents as a licensor and tell parents now to trust their intuition. That will be more valuable than any study and any information the government gives you through any study or information they put on their websites. All paid for by the parents' money, the taxpayers' money.
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