Have You Reported A Parent?

[Unregistered]

I was wondering if anybody here has ever reported a parent to CPS/CYS and how you made the decision that you needed to report.

I have a family that I am just going back and forth on whether to call. I have concerns that the mother is sleeping instead of supervising and so far this week alone one of the 2 kids arrived with a large bruise by her eye she says was from falling off the bed and the other required a trip to the emergency room after falling off a bed and cutting her back.

I do believe the children are telling the truth and do not think someone is purposely hurting them but I don't think they are being supervised.

They are also often dirty and wearing clothes that don't fit properly. I get them dressed in the morning and today the mother sent a tank top for a kindergartner. It is basically going on Winter and we are in PA.

There have been other instances of injury where they tell me DCM was sleeping and I have been going back and forth for going on 2 months. I need to make a decision and for some reason I am scared to call and be wrong.

[Unregistered]

I always go with my gut.If I'm losing sleep over it or constantly thinking about it there is probably a reason why.
My gut has NEVER been wrong!

[sharlan]

I am very happy to say that I've never been put in that situation.

[spinnymarie]

I have at school when I thought that an injury was inconsistent with the story. It won't hurt for them to have it on record that you thought there might be a form of neglect.

[Leigh]

As a provider, yes. Nothing happened. They didn't even discuss with the family (and the severe neglect continues to this day). As a foster parent, yes. The reports were found to be valid.

[Unregistered]

As a coach I turned a mother in after her daughter confided in me that she was being beat. I won't give too much information here but CPS eventually had the girl live with her dad.

Does the mom have a job in which she would need to sleep weird hours or do you think she has a substance abuse problem? From my experience CPS was so busy they almost dismissed my complaint and I had a child that was 12 and told me exactly what was going on. It was ridiculous. Just make sure that you have more than a hunch, otherwise it may become worse. What if she takes the kids out of your care and you are the only consistent normal thing in their lives? Without a doubt if you think the kids are in immediate danger, call, but if you are just suspicious find out more information and arm yourself with more info. The mom I reported called and threatened me and I ended up getting a restraining order. She told me if she wants to beat her kid that's her business, not mine. Luckily she left the message on a voicemail so it helped the child's case. That mom was insane!

[coolconfidentme]

ALWAYS error on the side of the child! I have reported injuries to CPS & the mom was furious with me. I told her I was doing what the law required me to do & she should be thankful someone has put her child's best interest ahead of everyone else. If she did nothing, she has nothing to worry about.

[Blackcat31]

yes I have reported a parent before.

I've also given information to a guardian ad litem and testified in court.

ALWAYS err on the side of caution. As a mandated reporter you are legally required to report anything you feel is abuse, physical, mental or emotional.

It is up to the courts to decide if the report is valid enough to look into.

I know most providers fear parents will be angry and upset with them but it's part of the job description you agreed to when you became a professional child care provider.

It may make a parent mad but it could save a child's life.

[GKJNIGMN]

She does work 3rd shift but her kids are in daycare while she is at work plus 8 hours afterwards so she can sleep.

I wouldn't say it's a hunch because her children can tell me they got hurt while mommy was sleeping and I understand things happen it's more the fact that it keeps happening.

The dirty clothes, the fact that they smell, black crusty moldy stuff in the sippy cups, etc. I know for a fact isn't related to her working 3rd shift. I contacted a friend of mine who did care in the same city and found out she had them as well back when the mother was working 1st shift but terminated care after 2 weeks. Said she had to bathe them when they came in the house because she was worried they would bring in bugs or something.

[itlw8]

I called on my sister in law once. I was told what I described was not neglect but poor parenting. It has to get pretty low to be called neglect. sad. The kids were mostly school age at the time.

[thetoddlerwhisper]

I was wondering if anybody here has ever reported a parent to CPS/CYS and how you made the decision that you needed to report.

I have a family that I am just going back and forth on whether to call. I have concerns that the mother is sleeping instead of supervising and so far this week alone one of the 2 kids arrived with a large bruise by her eye she says was from falling off the bed and the other required a trip to the emergency room after falling off a bed and cutting her back.

I do believe the children are telling the truth and do not think someone is purposely hurting them but I don't think they are being supervised.

They are also often dirty and wearing clothes that don't fit properly. I get them dressed in the morning and today the mother sent a tank top for a kindergartner. It is basically going on Winter and we are in PA.

There have been other instances of injury where they tell me DCM was sleeping and I have been going back and forth for going on 2 months. I need to make a decision and for some reason I am scared to call and be wrong.

i have. it was dismissed altho it was severe neglect and i still continue to care for that child and clean them daily.

[jenn]

As a daycare provider, no. As a kindergarten teacher, yes. You are not convicting the mom of anything, just reporting a suspected neglect. If it is found to be not true, great. If you found out later that something happened due to neglect, and you had been suspicious of it, that would be hard. Go with your gut.

[nannyde]

I did a long time ago. I had a sib group of a 2 year old and baby. I think the baby was about 10 months.

The baby started arriving at my house with bites ALL over her arms, face, legs etc. I KNEW they couldn't have come from my house. I have had one bite my first year of doing daycare. Never happened again.

I started pointing them out to Mom and she started suggesting they happened here. (This was within a week of starting). I started doing a head to toe assessment on her EVERY day at drop off and pick up and documented each bite. A couple of days of showing Mom she left with nothing new but came with new ones the Mom couldn't pawn them off on me.

Second week they came back and the baby was covered in them. I did an assessment at drop off and saw how torn up she was ... pointed them out to Mom and documented them in front of mom. She left and I called dhs. I was able to photograph and email pics to the worker.

They visited her and it came back unfounded. They said that since it was the two year old doing it there wasn't much they could do. Of course that was my last day with them. Mom was livid.

The DHS said the Mom should be supervising better but it didn't rise to the level of nneglect even though the babies face had many bites.

It was around the time that one of my daycare friends sister lost her daycare registration AND her LPN License after getting a founded case of neglect from a daycare kid that was bitten multiple times over days by a daycare kid.

Her deal was nothing compared to my dc baby. Neither the biter or bitee were infants.

[Unregistered]

I did once and the parent WAS furious. However, when I explained WHY I did it, besides legally I had to, I explained, I never accused the parent. For all I know, an OUTSIDER is abusing the child, say at school or maybe at camp or who knows? It's not ALWAYS that I'm reporting the parent. I was reporting the SUSPICIOUS SITUATION altogether. It was up to the state to sift out IF my suspicions were founded or not and if the parent didn't do the injustice, find out WHO DID for the best interest of the child. So, when I made my report I stated I thought the child was being abused, I saw bruises that looked like hand prints, stuff like that, but I never actually said WHO I thought was doing the abuse because I couldn't be sure and the parent's didn't SEEM like they would but because I was not the only provider and neither were the parents, I knew SOMEONE put a hand on that child that wasn't me and if it wasn't the parents, SOMEONE who was doing it needed to be found out. KWIM?

[MotherNature]

No, but I considered it with my first family. Mom wouldn't wash DCB's clothes very often. There were many occasions when he would wear the same thing 4 days in a row, including socks. It wasn't because he was being difficult and wanting to wear it either. He also smelled like cat pee a couple times too & mom verified that the cat peed on his clothes, but her car was broken & she didn't want to ride the bus to the laundromat a few blocks away.