DSHS, Department of Early Learning, Washington State, Florida...It's all the Same, Failure by Regulators to Take Action

With four year old Jordan Coleman dying in a hot day care car in Sunrise, Florida, his day care provider like so many was given a heads up by the state that they'd be visiting her home.

In Washington State as a day care licensor when I made unannounced monitor visits to a day care home and found them overcapacity repeatedly, Washington State managers would not shut down the home. Then after a child dies, the state regulators will revoke the license citing all the violations they'd seen over the years that they never took action on. 

It's a known practice for day care providers to delay opening the door to a regulator or food program monitor while children are hidden in closets, put in the garage, sent out the back door to a neighbor's house and now in Florida to die in a car. Other day care providers know it and the states know it.

In Washington State and most other states the department managers won't post the violations seen in day care homes and the government managers don't give that information to Child Care Resource and Referral now called Child Care Aware.  Child Care Aware is just an extension of the same old government failure, tricking parents into believing that licensed means the day care provider is operating per law.  It doesn't.

From the article:

"Coleman was left inside a sport utility vehicle outside the Versailles Gardens Condominium complex in Tamarac on Aug. 1. He was supposed to be at the 3C's Day Academy in Sunrise, which is run out of a home. However, he and several other children were removed from the home by the daycare owner's daughter. The daycare had been expecting to see a visit from state investigators that day and had been cited before for being over capacity."

Child Care Aware?  Child Care Beware.

America's regulatory history is shocking and the amount of taxpayer money that goes into giving the illusion that there is oversight and enforcement is a  shocking deadly farce.

Regulation came in the 1880s specifically to create a barrier between pesky concerned citizens and the big railroad companies at that time.  It was never created to prevent harm, it was created to allow harm. Dead history, history not taught in public school education, has created dead citizens under the specifically created illusion that our regulatory laws mean something when they don't.


http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21008232062214/lawsuit-filed-after-child-dies-in-car/

Panel Protects DSHS in their Failures in Powell Case

Who was on the panel? The article says, "a panel of lawyers, a judge, a police officer, social service providers, a psychologist and two state senators."

No citizens, no we, the people were involved. And as usual in these child death cases no mention is made of managers, the attorney general's office and high ranking government officials.

I helped a dad protect his sons, a four year old and six year old last year from CPS who let the boys be around the boyfriend of the mom who terrorized and beat the boys. The line social worker had a congeal relationship with mom's boyfriend. He was very cavalier, confident and controlling about his power over the boys.

I had to go back inside my old agency, DSHS CPS and pound away to get the CPS head honchos to walk a simple piece of paper over to the judge so the dad could get back custody. What a nightmare, worrying about those two boys, especially the four year old.

Little ones with a single mom who has a boyfriend is at higher risk to be killed.

All up the chain to the highest mucky mucks I went. I finally got inside and met with a high manager who remembered he and I had worked well together when I was on the inside.  He then agreed to walk that piece of paper over to the court and the dad got back custody.

I called the CPS hotline and made a CPS report on CPS.  I urge all citizens to do the same. 

This in my expert opinion is just one more cover up of DSHS.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018832435_powell03m.html

Department of Early Learning In Washington State Non-expiring Day Care Licenses

With the State of Washington having gone to non-expiring family home child day care licenses there should have been an increase in enforcement actions. No such announcement has been forthcoming from the Department of Early Learning to date.

The the non-actions may actually increase injury and deaths like from the article about  day care in Minnesota.  Weird stuff can go on behind private closed doors. 

There was one day care provider in Washington State who wouldn't allow parents into the home to drop off or get their children.  I caught her with eight over her capacity of twelve. She had no assistant and hid children upstairs in the closet.  The Department of Early managers would not revoke her license.

The article below quotes Washington State's day care manager Aimee Lapp Payne. Ms Payne  failed to disclose for the report the numerous times that Washington State regulators allowed poor and risky providers to keep their licenses

From the article: "The risk is that low standards result in low quality, said Aimee Lapp Payne, who wrote an influential 2011 report for the National Association for Regulatory Administration on child-care safety. "If it isn't a regulatory requirement, they aren't going to do it," she said."

Aimee should have said, "Even though it's a  requirement we too many times Washington State day care licensing didn't  take action,  not until children were injured,  maimed or killed."

http://www.startribune.com/local/162479246.html?page=2&c=y

Bottom line nothing in Washington State that I've witnessed at this time nor has Washington State shared any data to show that it is making a change at this time. 

With non-expiring licenses we may see a change towards what's happening in Minnesota increased injury, maiming, death and an increase in the department hiding information from the public to cover up those failures, 

Department of Early Learning in Washington State has History of Allowing Day Care Providers to have Too Many Children

This article from Minnesota shows on average eight children die in licensed child day care a year. There have been articles lately as well that state that previously deaths said to be SIDS may likely not have been SIDS but suffocation as happened to three month old Dane Abledinger in this article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172651/Three-month-old-baby-dies-daycare-worker-face-heavy-blanket-floor-left-HOUR-months-girl-16-watch-children-got-hair-done.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
 
 Licensed under laws that require state agencies to protect children in day care these state agencies don't and this story is typical of keeping day care providers licensed violation after violation until a child dies then they revoke the license.

 As a licensor in Washington State when I witnessed six children being hidden in a closet and two babies each behind closed doors upstairs in a provider's (Connie King) unlicensed space the Department of Early Learning managers would not revoke the provider's license.  The provider was licensed for 12 and had 21 preschoolers in care with no assistant; and she wouldn't allow parents to come inside her house.

Another licensor found the same provider operating at over capacity a few days after I was there.  Then the supervisor, Darcy Taylor went out and found her not supervising the children.

The taxpayers give Darcy Taylor and other managers a good salary, health care benefits and retirement pensions while the managers do not operate the agency by law, laws that would keep children safe if they enforced the laws.

In addition the Department of Early Learning does not obey the public disclosure law so that parents can get information. The department's history of altering and destroying public records is a felony for which no high ranking state government official would prosecute. The Department of Early Learning's  record keeping is designed to hide information from the public as well.

The Department of Early Learning and the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has been historically protected by the Attorney General's Office.  The Attorney General's Office has not been protecting the citizens of Washington State especially when it come to protecting children.

The Department of Early Learning's website is designed to give an illusion that licensing works but as long as the department has no transparency it will be business as usual and failures will continue to be covered up until another child dies. 

Parents shouldn't be forced to play Russian Roulette with their children's lives.

Department of Early Learning, Another Licensing Failure

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Marysville-teen-admits-daycare-crimes-161268135.html

This day care provider, Anne LaDale Moore,  ran 24 hours a day,  made $232,000.00, all paid by the taxpayers of Washington State all the while giving her son, Dakota Wilson, access to many children.

Now Dakota Wilson's violations against children won't identify him as a sex offender. Is this a story about the judicial system? The final failure in another taxpayer system?

 This is repeat behavior from his mom's day care in Idaho, three times he was investigated for sexually offending against children there.

The Department of Early Learning likely made no contact with Idaho in processing her getting a license here.

The pertinent information for the public and parents to know is they can't trust the department to do proper licensing or monitoring. There is no monitoring done before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.  There is no monitoring done on the weekends.

The Department of Early Learning website gives the illusion that licensing, monitoring and investigations are done properly, but that isn't the reality.

Child Care Resource and Referral now called Child Care Aware gets their funding from the state (via the Feds) and is again designed to give parents a false sense of security.

Child Care Resource and Referral now called Child Care Aware has NO access to the information that the state keeps on licensed day care facilities. You think when you call them, they are referring you to day care facilities that meet licensing regulations. They are not, they don't know.

Parents are in a difficult place in looking to keep their children safe in day care. 

Child Day Care-Leaving Children to Chance-Washington State and Oklahoma

This report "Leaving Children to Chance" by the National Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) left their methodology to chance.  All this report highlights to begin with is just what is written down on a piece of paper (otherwise known as standards) and then the individual states saying to the NACCRA, "yes, what I am reporting is true."

Therefore, this is not an actual look to see if states enforce day care standards, it is only, did the states write down a standard (or requirement) on a piece of paper?

What NACCRA wrote about their methodology:

"In November 2011, NACCRRA sent a request to child care licensing directors in all 51 states (including the District of Columbia) and a representative from the Office of Family Policy/Office of Children and Youth in the Department of Defense (DoD). We asked them to verify the accuracy of information we had gathered about specific licensing regulations in their state related to small family child care homes."

Well, just looking at the states ranked in the top two, Oklahoma and Washington State the information is not accurate.

One NACCRRA category is: "Online inspection and complaint reports are available to parents on the Internet."

For Washington State inspection reports are not available to parents on-line as reported in "Leaving Children to Chance".

For Oklahoma complaint inspections are not available to parents on-line as reported in "Leaving Children to Chance."

That immediately reduces the scores for those top two states. This report lacks validity and reliability in the outcomes of NACCRA's research and analysis. They could have at least gone to the websites of Washington State and Oklahoma to do some independent verification, but they didn't.

Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies are funded by the feds and the states. They don't have access to the information the state licensing agencies have nor do they provide accurate information to parents. Most of these agencies are subordinate to the federal and state governments to keep their money, keep the funding going on the taxpayers dollar.

The most accurate part of NACCRA's report is, indeed, parents are "Leaving Children to Chance" when they look for day care.

http://www.naccrra.org/about-child-care/state-child-care-licensing/2012-leaving-children-to-chance

Smoke and mirrors; and a waste of the taxpayers' money.  

Washington State - Everett Child Daycare license suspended over violence, neglect

To the parents in Washington State the latest revision of the child day care regulations go into effect on March 31, 2012.  Kudos to the Department of Early Learning (DEL) for taking action sooner rather than later; and before a child got maimed or killed.

I gave DEL kudos for writing researched based, evidence based regulations. The next step in my experience as a former child day care licensor was for managers to fairly enforce the regulations to keep children safe, healthy and happy.

I don't have copies of the records as yet and it appears the agency is moving forward with obeying the laws our citizen legislature passed.

Then the agency upping the front end, at this time, will go a long ways to producing a higher quality licensing process when folks apply to get a license; and a high quality outcome with untraumatized children and children who are still whole and alive. 

For child day care providers I recommend upping your own quality by accessing a mentor and classes through SCORE (Service Core of Retired Executives); and that organization will assist you in your small business characteristics that will lead to high quality and success.

Daycare facility has license suspended over violence, neglect