A recent story on MSNBC gave information about how daycare facilities could do better by the children that they are in charge of protecting. Unfortunately, there are some lacking elements in what is available to daycare facilities as far as conducting background checks is concerned. For example, the most extensive background checking databases are only available to law enforcement agencies. This means that you’ll have to talk to your daycare facility and see what they do to keep your children safe.
Multiple Sources
You should always ask your daycare provider if they do background checks. If they say that they do, you need to take it one step further. Ask them how many different sources they use to conduct those background checks. Some of them are available to anybody. For example, as the article points out, you can find the sexual criminal registry for any state by simply searching for “sex offenders” followed by the state name that applies. It’s not a bad idea to check this database to see if any of the people who work at the daycare show up.
See if the daycare facility is using all of these sources to check their employees. There have been several cases where predators have moved from daycare facility to daycare facility without being found out before they finally committed a crime so egregious that they were discovered.
There are also registries available that will give you access to court case documents, convictions and prisoner data and other information that could prove vital in determining whether or not a particular daycare employee is a threat to children.
Seriousness
The article also points out that talking to the administrators and asking them some safety questions can be useful. For example, how quickly can they evacuate the daycare building in the event of a natural disaster, a fire or another emergency? How difficult is it for people to get into the facility and how many people will intercept them before they get access to the children?
Providing safety for the children at a daycare is the responsibility of the facility owners and administrators. If your child has been the victim of daycare child abuse, contact a daycare abuse lawyer. They may be able to help you by putting together a lawsuit that could end up winning your family enough compensation to pay for counseling, medical care and other resources you may need in the wake of the abuse.