Stricter Day Care Laws Exempt Private Providers
As Indiana lawmakers look to improve safety standards at day care centers, more than 1,000 unlicensed centers could lose federal money and ultimately be forced to close. The move comes from child deaths that have occurred in day care facilities, but would still exempt home day care operations like the one where a Warsaw toddler died last year.
A recent Indianapolis Star investigation found that “15 of the 21 day care deaths since 2009 occurred in unlicensed or illegal facilities.” Among those cases was 18-month-old Payton Brettell, whose death happened in his babysitter’s Warsaw home in 2012. The toddler died of positional asphyxia, or accidental strangulation, when he was put down for a nap in a car seat located in a bedroom of the home.
The babysitter in Payton’s case, Dana Shell, 44, pleaded guilty in April to reckless homicide, a Class C felony, and was sentenced to serve less than a year in jail (See related). Shell operated a day care in her home, but was exempt from state child care rules.
Laws being considered for proposal by Indiana’s Committee on Child Care would still not regulate private babysitters, nor would they re-examine standards for child care ministries, which currently are also not regulated by state standards for things like child to staff ratios, supervision requirements, food handling safety or even performing criminal background checks.
In a 2005 report on Indiana’s day care industry, child-care advocate Carole Stein said, “We regulate fishing in our state better than child care. In Indiana, you can’t fish without a license … but anyone can take care of children in their home without a license.”
In Indiana, those who babysit in their homes do not have to be licensed if they care for six or less children not related to the caregiver.
A third meeting of the Committee on Child Care will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15, and will include discussion on the proposed legislation. The meeting will be webcast at http://www.in.gov/legislative/2441.htm.