Fatalities in Child Care Facilities

This article gives insight on the different types of daycare facilities and the statistics on fatalitiesand types of fatalities in each different daycare facility. The three different types of child care include, in-home care (provided in the child’s home), family daycare (provided in the provider’shome) and care offered in centers. The data included in this article was obtain in three differentmethods, the first being media search, second legal search, and third state records. Research inthis article shows that out of all three of the different types of child care facilities, family daycare is the most unsafe.

Among the three types of facilities the majority of children are looked after in a daycare center.

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About 7 percent are looked after in their own homes, family day care enrolls about 27 percent,and centers about 66 percent.(Wrigley) The media search showed that there were 3,681 cases ofcare giving failures. Of these , 43 percent occurred in family day care, 24 percent in child carecenters, and 16 percent in in-home care. (Wrigley) The Legal search also showed similarpercentages. The search produced 777 cases, 47 percent occurred in family day care homes,whereas 28 percent occurred in center care and 10 percent in in-home care. (Wrigley) Included in the state records were 826 cases, 54 percent involved family day care cases; 38 percent dealt with cases involving child care centers; and 5 percent involved in-home care cases. According tothese statistics you can clearly see that the majority of the research cases came from the media search, but the overall highest percentage in each was that of family daycare.

According to the statistics, child care provided in the child’s home seems to be the most safe. The research shows that there is a very small percentage of fatalities that occur in this setting.

Although, child care centers are the most structured form of child care and they also take care ofthe highest percentage of children, whereas, in-home care has the smallest percentage of children. Daycare centers also have multiple employees, the employees have been trained, and are experienced. The fact that child care centers have multiple employees’ that are highly qualified, means that they have the tools and experience to provide safer care for the child.

Child care in the providers home is the most unsafe among the three. Child care providers in thistype of setting usually have no formal training and may or may not be licensed. The fatality rate is lower in daycare centers in comparison to family daycare, because they have the ability to have someone help them with a difficult child or take a break if they need one. In a family daycare setting there is only one provider and that provider has no one to relieve her of her duty if the need arises. So that makes it clear how it would be much easier for a family daycare provider to loose control and harm a child. Also in a daycare setting it is more unlikely for someone to harm a child because they know that they are being watched by there coworkers.

It seems as though with all of the fatalities that occur every day in all of the different types of facilities, that there would be some type of system set in place that oversees all of the facilities, and to help protect these poor innocent children that are dying every day. There has to be a way to prevent this from happening. As a parent you have a very hard decision to make when choosing a daycare facility, it’s one of the most important decisions we as parents have to make in our lives. I think when looking for a daycare provider, parents should ask more questions, and definitely go to the facility and check it out. I also believe that if you choose to take your child to a family daycare provider you should be allowed to do a background check on that person. Even doing that though doesn’t mean that your child will be safe there. The truth of the matter is, that no matter who you leave you child with, you never know what might happen to them while that are in that person/facilities care.

Works CitedWrigley, Julia. "Fatalities and the Organization of Child Care in the United States, 1985-2003." American Sociological Review, 2005, Vol. 70 (October:729-757)

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