An article written by Arianne Fuchsberger, M.A., a Research Associate for Persuasive Strategies Blog gives parents and attorneys a powerful tool. Persuasive Strategies, written for attorneys I find provides a plethora of valuable information for my line of work as an analyst/expert witness for civil lawsuits related to child day care.
Fuchsberg's article outlines how to conduct searches on potential jurors. Ah, a good skill for parents to embrace to decide which day care will protect and nurture their child.
With my twenty plus years experience and witnessing inside a state government agency and in my opinion parents must understand the government background check process in most states is a joke. Government websites extolling all is "OK" with a particular day care on their particular website is too often nothing more than playing Russian Roulette. It is smoke and mirrors paraded before parents, the public and the taxpayer that all is perfectly fine in daycare when it is not.
Parents cannot count on the government to do a character background investigation then an analysis on the search documents found on day care staff. The failures I saw inside the system were atrocious; I documented, kept records, put together a log; copies of all were submitted to the high elected offices charged with protecting the public in Washington State.
Where one agency started to take an action to investigate the problem other power brokers stopped that action. Then the government brought in a new computer system and archived the old one in such a way you have to be a computer expert to know how to ask for the "public record" for it to be produced.
Understand the government does not exist to protect your child or your peace of mind. It is more powerful for the parent to know individually the parent is more powerful and sticking up for your child in the end will produce the responsible and trustworthy party. You can be more powerful than the government.
On a child day care center you are researching get all the names of all the staff. Start searching Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and sex offender registries, etc (see article).
A sexual molestation case in day care I assisted with one year I found by a simple search Facebook postings of a person the day care staff had submitted as a character reference. The personal reference was a convicted sex offender. This information was readily available but no one with oversight responsibilities conducted any kind of research or investigation into any of the staff person's references. Simply ignored.
If child day care centers react to giving you the names of their staff people don't put your children in those day care centers. It is a red flag. If the state attempts to assure you (particularly in Washington State) that their "background" check "cleared" tell them you are not asking about criminal conviction background. Your interest is in the "character, competence and suitability" of the staff person; and asked to see copies of records assessing those factors. You want it in black and white.
Be upfront, powerful and demand to be shown the process by which backgrounds are cleared. Asked the state what they mean by "background". The history with state governments is they mush up criminal conviction history per a list someone up in the government headquarters office drew up as opposed to the "character, competence and suitability" part of the process.
If state government drags their feet, speaks doublespeak, double talk to you, ask why a parent would not have full disclosure on who is having unsupervised or supervised access to their child? Why not?
When you get the names of day care staff and information pops up contrary to the types of characteristics required to nurture, guide and keep your child safe, print off a copy of what you found, make a copy for the state, give it to them with a demand to know how the state and/or the daycare failed in their duty to find out information you found easily in your search. Document everything.
From the article is an example of information you might find on Facebook posts (substitute for "juror" day care staff):
In teaching my class to day care staff employees when folks identify a favorite detective of theirs these folks seem to have the sharpest critical thinking skills. Sometimes until we do the group exercises they don't realize how sharp and capable they are. If you have a favorite detective channel them as you do your own investigation. Fuchsberg's article outlines how to conduct searches on potential jurors. Ah, a good skill for parents to embrace to decide which day care will protect and nurture their child.
With my twenty plus years experience and witnessing inside a state government agency and in my opinion parents must understand the government background check process in most states is a joke. Government websites extolling all is "OK" with a particular day care on their particular website is too often nothing more than playing Russian Roulette. It is smoke and mirrors paraded before parents, the public and the taxpayer that all is perfectly fine in daycare when it is not.
Parents cannot count on the government to do a character background investigation then an analysis on the search documents found on day care staff. The failures I saw inside the system were atrocious; I documented, kept records, put together a log; copies of all were submitted to the high elected offices charged with protecting the public in Washington State.
Where one agency started to take an action to investigate the problem other power brokers stopped that action. Then the government brought in a new computer system and archived the old one in such a way you have to be a computer expert to know how to ask for the "public record" for it to be produced.
Understand the government does not exist to protect your child or your peace of mind. It is more powerful for the parent to know individually the parent is more powerful and sticking up for your child in the end will produce the responsible and trustworthy party. You can be more powerful than the government.
On a child day care center you are researching get all the names of all the staff. Start searching Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and sex offender registries, etc (see article).
A sexual molestation case in day care I assisted with one year I found by a simple search Facebook postings of a person the day care staff had submitted as a character reference. The personal reference was a convicted sex offender. This information was readily available but no one with oversight responsibilities conducted any kind of research or investigation into any of the staff person's references. Simply ignored.
If child day care centers react to giving you the names of their staff people don't put your children in those day care centers. It is a red flag. If the state attempts to assure you (particularly in Washington State) that their "background" check "cleared" tell them you are not asking about criminal conviction background. Your interest is in the "character, competence and suitability" of the staff person; and asked to see copies of records assessing those factors. You want it in black and white.
Be upfront, powerful and demand to be shown the process by which backgrounds are cleared. Asked the state what they mean by "background". The history with state governments is they mush up criminal conviction history per a list someone up in the government headquarters office drew up as opposed to the "character, competence and suitability" part of the process.
If state government drags their feet, speaks doublespeak, double talk to you, ask why a parent would not have full disclosure on who is having unsupervised or supervised access to their child? Why not?
When you get the names of day care staff and information pops up contrary to the types of characteristics required to nurture, guide and keep your child safe, print off a copy of what you found, make a copy for the state, give it to them with a demand to know how the state and/or the daycare failed in their duty to find out information you found easily in your search. Document everything.
From the article is an example of information you might find on Facebook posts (substitute for "juror" day care staff):
- "Posts – What jurors post or the comments they make on other posts or articles can provide great information. First, what they say can give you an idea of their attitudes and beliefs. How they say it can give you an idea of how strong that belief is, how outspoken and opinionated they may be in deliberations, as well as in jury leadership. Finally, the way in which they say it can provide you with information on their education level and self-perception and presentation."
I see many day care staff hungry and thirsty; wanting to participate in a higher quality of care. Parents pushing at their end gives the higher quality day care staff concomitant power at their end to push; to confront and expose poor quality staff they've witnessed being unkind to children.
You may want to follow Persuasive Litigator; besides possible strategies in keeping your child safe there might some strategies for your workplace environment as well.
http://www.persuasivelitigator.com/2015/03/social-media-searches-go-beyond-the-google.html#more
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