Thursday, December 28, 2017

Child Care Aware? Child Care Unaware? Child Care Beware - Oregon & Washington State

The pattern across the United States is similar to the recent article which came about because two babies died in a day care center in Portland, Oregon.  The last death that mom went above and beyond, contacting every government agency and contract government agency to dig up any information that was on the Broadway Children's Center. 

The legislature in Washington State worked on and off for years regarding the issue of giving parents nothing more than public records. Those efforts like in 2007 were brushed off from the Department of Early Learning's (DEL) shoulder like a pesky fly. Impotent. The attorney general's office advised the law was a "shall".  DEL did not care. When pushed by me and legislator representative Ross Hunter, it was that DEL could not do it until they got millions of dollars for a new computer system.   DEL did not care.

I got a copy of the records on put the information on my website.  Cost to give parents the most compelling information?  Nothing.  Time spent to upload and edit?  About 6 hours. 

DEL said they needed millions to obey a law that was a "shall".  

Oregon in this article is making the same excuse.  Oregon's management of the licensing agency is worse than even Washington State which is terrible.  2014 in Washington State like this mom's horror it came uncovered when a second baby died in a day care facility there.  Then finally that license was revoked.

As a licensor for thirteen years as I saw over and over the failures of licensing and before I went outside the internal whistle blowing system to the public directly via KING 5 News and testifying to the legislature I told parents to trust their gut feelings.  Interview the provider. Any reaction on their part of anger or defensiveness to a question; or a feeling that they provider was controlling them from asking questions as well as how do the children look; over 70% of communication is non-verbal thus if they got a bad read do not put their child in that day care.

The corruption in so many states and so many state governments; and so many regulatory licensing agencies after decades went so far beyond the Pale that the American people wanted an outlier for president; and one of them won. 

It is time to hold these corrupt and/or incompetent/lazy government managers to account.

From the article:

"Oregon regulators are responsible for licensing and monitoring day cares with four or more children. But they've shown little urgency over the years responding to serious injuries at licensed facilities and have failed to alert parents to known concerns, a review by The Oregonian/OregonLive has found. Among the shortcomings:
  • Over the past decade, a child was seriously injured at an Oregon day care every 43 hours, on average, according to state data analyzed by the newsroom. That's six deaths and 2,022 serious injuries, excluding seizures, reported between 2007 and 2016. When the state's early childhood policy board recently discussed annual injury figures, one official said simply, "Wow."
  • Regulators acknowledged in interviews that until very recently, they hardly ever visited day cares in response to a reported injury. The state's website for childcare consumers displays none of the injury data for parents looking to evaluate individual facilities.
  • Oregon officials concluded that children were abused or neglected at 51 day cares between 2012 and 2016, according to state documents obtained through public records requests. None of those substantiated findings of abuse or neglect show up for parents to view on the state's childcare website.
  • The state also found 97 childcare providers since 2007 who defrauded the government out of $834,000 in subsidies intended for low-income working families, other state records show. The fraud determination did not end those operators' eligibility to provide childcare, and none of the fraud findings is shown online for parents.
  • State officials don't always notify families when taking steps to close a day care. In one case, regulators tried to shut down an in-home facility after the owner admitted to illegal drug use, documents reveal. But kids kept attending the facility this year because state officials never told parents it was no longer licensed."
  • Copy into your browser to read entire article:

  • http://www.oregonlive.com/watchdog/index.ssf/2017/12/childcare_in_oregon_state_webs.html

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

"My mother runs a day care and abuses the kids."

Stefan Molyneux has good shows about life and takes the time to delve into the issues.  

The young man in this one, his mom runs a day care.  His mom insults the children, mocks them, hits them, is impatient, mocks them if the children cry...

Take a listen. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMpFuMuzOqo