Post by pavel on Feb 1, 2016 16:09:35 GMT -6
Mississippi’s weakly regulated child care system often perpetuates dangerous conditions for babies and young children by failing to hold centers to minimum standards or helping them improve, a review of public records by The Clarion-Ledger and The Hechinger Report found.
Interviews with workers at 30 centers and a review of 393 inspection reports and 79 complaint investigations from centers in central Mississippi reveal that regulations are inconsistently enforced, assistance for centers is often minimal and punishments don’t always lead to better conditions for children.
The complaints included allegations that children were hit by workers, sexually assaulted by other children or sent to the hospital after being injured. The investigations that followed were often superficial, according to documents filed from February 2013 to December 2014, obtained under the state’s Public Records Act from the Department of Health’s Division of Child Care Licensure.
The Health Department identifies five violations on its website that it says “may endanger children,” such as leaving children alone in a classroom or leaving one adult to watch too many children. Twenty-three centers, roughly 6 percent of the sample of inspection reports, had a letter or other indication in their file that a fine had been assessed for one of these violations. Seventeen of these centers had previously been penalized for breaking one those regulations. At least eight centers in the sample had more than $1,000 in previous fines for breaking various regulations including the five the Health Department has singled out.
Read more: www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2016/01/30/mississippi-child-care-crisis/79315696/
Interviews with workers at 30 centers and a review of 393 inspection reports and 79 complaint investigations from centers in central Mississippi reveal that regulations are inconsistently enforced, assistance for centers is often minimal and punishments don’t always lead to better conditions for children.
The complaints included allegations that children were hit by workers, sexually assaulted by other children or sent to the hospital after being injured. The investigations that followed were often superficial, according to documents filed from February 2013 to December 2014, obtained under the state’s Public Records Act from the Department of Health’s Division of Child Care Licensure.
The Health Department identifies five violations on its website that it says “may endanger children,” such as leaving children alone in a classroom or leaving one adult to watch too many children. Twenty-three centers, roughly 6 percent of the sample of inspection reports, had a letter or other indication in their file that a fine had been assessed for one of these violations. Seventeen of these centers had previously been penalized for breaking one those regulations. At least eight centers in the sample had more than $1,000 in previous fines for breaking various regulations including the five the Health Department has singled out.
Read more: www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2016/01/30/mississippi-child-care-crisis/79315696/