51 Child Deaths In Virginia Unlicensed Care?

[Cat Herder]

I don't know...I see a LOT of deaths in licensed facilities in the news as well. I just read somewhere that there were 6 infant deaths in MN by licensed providers in one year. The 51 deaths mentioned in this article is over a decade. I'm sure numbers vary state to state and many go unreported so it's hard to get accurate counts but licensed daycare has it's fair share and I see it on the news all the time

Oh, I agree. This article is just the one being emailed out to providers from the NAFCC this morning. The topic is interesting, though.

Licensed/unlicensed, legal/illegal, registered/unregistered, high quality/low quality... it is all confusing. What does each mean? Who is inspecting? Who is enforcing? Who is advocating? Who is benefiting?... YKWIM?

[SquirrellyMama]

I don't know...I see a LOT of deaths in licensed facilities in the news as well. I just read somewhere that there were 6 infant deaths in MN by licensed providers in one year. The 51 deaths mentioned in this article is over a decade. I'm sure numbers vary state to state and many go unreported so it's hard to get accurate counts but licensed daycare has it's fair share and I see it on the news all the time

I read that as "6 deaths in MN by a licensed provider in one year". I had to do a reread on that one. I tried to find numbers by licensed vs unlicensed in the country, but couldn't find anything. I probably need Googling classes.

Kelly

[Cat Herder]

I'm procrastinating The funniest part is that I'm procrastinating reading a book about not procrastinating.

:::::::: I am procrastinating making a bulletin board full of outdated pamphlets, for parents who never step foot into my house, to meet a checkbox requirement on someone else's agenda...

I get you.

[Blackcat31]

I don't know...I see a LOT of deaths in licensed facilities in the news as well. I just read somewhere that there were 6 infant deaths in MN by licensed providers in one year.

Not sure where you got that information but between 2002 and 2012 there were 83 deaths in MN licensed child cares. There were 3 deaths in licensed centers.

Minnesota has 10,936 licensed family child care homes and 1,578 child care centers. Thirty-four percent of the child care homes have a license capacity for 10 children; forty-two percent have a license capacity for 12 children; and twenty percent have a license capacity of 14 children. The remaining four percent of the homes specializing in infant and toddler care and are licensed for five to nine children. All the deaths that occurred in family child care homes were licensed for ten or more children.

A majority of the deaths happened to infants sleeping in unsafe sleep situations.

http://rcfcca.com/PDF/ChildMortalityReviewPanelRecommendations.pdf

[Annalee]

How often are legally unlicensed providers inspected?

unlicensed providers are NEVER inspected in TN except from the food program:confused:

[Annalee]

How often are licensed day cares inspected. When I was licensed in my state I was never inspected. The food program came out twice a year, but the state never did. That was 4 years of being licensed, or registered. I can't remember what Iowa calls it.

I knew once a year when the food program was coming, but the other was a surprise visit. Of course, I knew exactly what time they would come if they did a surprise visit so that wasn't all that much of a surprise.

Day cares 10 miles north were inspected by the state because the local DHS is in that town.

Interestingly, when I was getting business insurance I was asked by our agent if I was licensed. I said no and asked if they wanted me to be. He said they preferred me to be unlicensed because I would have fewer children that way.

ETA: I understand that the food program is a state program, but they were looking at my food prep, not my house.


Kelly

In my state, if you are the highest star in QRIS you get 4 unannounced visits annually plus 1 announced visit from licensing. If you are a 0 star, you get 6 unannounced visits and 1 announced visit. All this on top of quarterly visit from USDA food program, 2 visits per year from health/environment, 1 visit from fire inspector. This is all in addition to the annual mandated assessment that can take 4-6 hours....Yep this is all since QRIS started dictating what/how/when/why for everything providers do from community events to materials in the daycare....:confused:

[SquirrellyMama]

In my state, if you are the highest star in QRIS you get 4 unannounced visits annually plus 1 announced visit from licensing. If you are a 0 star, you get 6 unannounced visits and 1 announced visit. All this on top of quarterly visit from USDA food program, 2 visits per year from health/environment, 1 visit from fire inspector. This is all in addition to the annual mandated assessment that can take 4-6 hours....Yep this is all since QRIS started dictating what/how/when/why for everything providers do from community events to materials in the daycare....:confused:

I would think this would increase illegal day cares. Maybe the real answer would be fewer inspections. I'm not saying no inspections, but sometimes less is more.

Kelly

[NeedaVaca]

Not sure where you got that information but between 2002 and 2012 there were 83 deaths in MN licensed child cares. There were 3 deaths in licensed centers.

Minnesota has 10,936 licensed family child care homes and 1,578 child care centers. Thirty-four percent of the child care homes have a license capacity for 10 children; forty-two percent have a license capacity for 12 children; and twenty percent have a license capacity of 14 children. The remaining four percent of the homes specializing in infant and toddler care and are licensed for five to nine children. All the deaths that occurred in family child care homes were licensed for ten or more children.

A majority of the deaths happened to infants sleeping in unsafe sleep situations.

http://rcfcca.com/PDF/ChildMortality...mendations.pdf

I will have to look for that article. I believe it said 6 infant deaths in 2012, that didn't include toddlers and it was a safe sleep article I had stumbled across. Either way, that was my point, that deaths occur in licensed child care not just unlicensed. The number you give was just way more (over 10 years vs 1) than my 6.

[Annalee]

I would think this would increase illegal day cares. Maybe the real answer would be fewer inspections. I'm not saying no inspections, but sometimes less is more.

Kelly

It has increased the number of illegal daycares....there were over 3000 FCC programs in 2001-02 when QRIS started, today there are 819.:confused::confused::confused: over 2000 providers went underground and many are keeping as many children as I have in my program....totally illegal, but unless they get turned in the state will NOT check them out! :confused::confused:

[NeedaVaca]

Found that article!

Is was a SIDS article.

It's sad when any child dies no matter where they are. I would be interested to see a breakdown of all of the deaths licensed/vs unlicensed and it would also be interesting to see how much higher the death toll is when they are not in our care. I imagine not in our care would be the highest (family/abusive/boyfriends/mom etc) but that is just purely a guess.

[SignMeUp]

We were told that during the timeframe of the 80-some deaths in child care, that there were 350-400 (don't recall the exact number) 'unsafe sleep' deaths at home.

[Unregistered]

there is no oversight in my state for unlicensed care, because they don't even know the childcare exists unless a parent were to call and report them violating state law of ratios or for abuse/neglect, ect. I am not unlicensed and the families I have worked with all know that up front.

[Unregistered]

***meant to say, I AM unlicensed!

[SignMeUp]

One of the infants who died in 2012, died of an undetected rare heart problem. Apparently the provider was still cited for unsafe sleep practices though.

[nanglgrl]

How often are licensed day cares inspected. When I was licensed in my state I was never inspected. The food program came out twice a year, but the state never did. That was 4 years of being licensed, or registered. I can't remember what Iowa calls it.

I knew once a year when the food program was coming, but the other was a surprise visit. Of course, I knew exactly what time they would come if they did a surprise visit so that wasn't all that much of a surprise.

Day cares 10 miles north were inspected by the state because the local DHS is in that town.

Interestingly, when I was getting business insurance I was asked by our agent if I was licensed. I said no and asked if they wanted me to be. He said they preferred me to be unlicensed because I would have fewer children that way.

ETA: I understand that the food program is a state program, but they were looking at my food prep, not my house.


Kelly

I'm a registered home daycare in Iowa. It used to be we were never inspected but now we are inspected every year and it is completely unannounced. I think 2014 was the first year 100% of registered home daycares are required to be inspected but I've been inspected annually for the last 3 years and all at different times of the year. I've gotten 100% on all of them except the first that was during a remodel and were things that just couldn't be helped.
It will eventually be the rule that any home receiving state funds will have unannounced inspections and the providers will be required to complete training hours.
All that it's done in my opinion, since it's still legal to be an unlicenced/ unregistered home is make more providers become unlicensed/unregistered. There are at least 4x the amount of unlicensed/unregistered in my area as licensed/registered.