Two recent cases profiled in media outlets should give parents who suspect that some sort of abuse may be going on at a daycare facility a bit of pause. The first involves a man in Des Moines Indiana who is accused of sexually abusing children at his wife’s in-home childcare facility. According to reporting in WHOTV, the man is accused by police of inappropriately touching children underneath their clothing.
This particular case alleges that the man had been engaging in the abuse for an estimated two-year period. The case has not gone to trial yet, but the police quoted in the Indianapolis Star said that the stories of children who did not attend the daycare at the same time and who had not met one another in person had stories that corroborated one another.
In the same article, it’s noted that the man accused of abusing the children had formerly worked at a juvenile detention facility. He had resigned from that facility after police started investigating him for sexual abuse at that job, but no instances of sexual abuse had ever been established.
Shut Down
The Indianapolis Star also reported that a day care in Greenwood was being shut down after a member of the church that runs the facility and who is under investigation for sexual abuse was allowed near the children. The church official in question was not at the time convicted of any crime, nor were they charged with a crime, but they had been warned to stay away from the children and to stay away from the facility while the investigation was ongoing.
The facility is being shut down, pending a couple of days of lead-time to allow parents to find somewhere else to bring their children.
The Danger
Sexual abuse in day care facilities is sometimes perpetrated by individuals who have already been investigated for these allegations or who are under investigation, but who are not complying with the law and who gain access to children anyway. One of the things that parents need to be very cautious about is making certain that everybody who works with children at a daycare facility is properly background checked and that, if there is any reason that they should not be around children, the daycare facility makes sure that they don’t end up on the staff, much less in the same building.
An attorney may be able to help you if your child is abused because of negligence on the part of a daycare center.