Originally Posted by Small Batch:
Not to be unkind, but I do not have an interest in your company or product. I don't know what you mean by "get it." I get the value of surveillance systems and I get the value of making a buck. Other than that, I am not sure what you mean. Best of luck to you though.
What you wrote seems contradictory, even from one sentence to the next. But I tried to interpret it charitably.
You wrote:
Why would cameras be both useless unless someone is monitoring them in real-time, and only useful later on after something has happened? Are they only useful in real-time, or are they only useful later on?
And, how might they be both useful only after an incident, and be nothing more than parent-pleasers? Are they useful at all, or are they not?
So you're saying that they did indeed change their behavior because they knew they were being watched.
Had they thought they were not being watched (or forgot that they were), they would not have sneaked into closets or rearranged furniture, or otherwise deliberately placed themselves in blind spots.
They were thinking, "I cannot do this here, because I am being watched. But if I could find a way to not be watched, then I can do this."
I didn't say they would. I said their behavior tends to change when they know they are being observed. If they don't know about the camera, then they believe they are not being observed, and their behavior will not change. If they know about the camera but believe no one will ever look at the footage, then they believe they aren't being observed, and their behavior will not change.
And the ones who were corrected and didn't leave? Either you fired them, or you allowed them to continue doing prohibited things.... or they changed their behavior because they knew they were being watched.
If they think that they will not appear on the video or that the video will not be watched, then they think they are not being observed, and so they will not change their behavior. They have to think they are being observed. It's not about the camera. It's about the observation... which is something for which a camera may be useful.
Lastly, those links you provided all underscore the value of cameras in a daycare. It sickens me to watch them, but I am at least glad there was clear evidence available showing what exactly happened to those children. Young children are typically unable to clearly explain what happened to them, if they are able to explain anything at all. At least those kids had those videos to speak for them.
I just put in a ten hour day so this may be a bit tangential but here goes...
What I meant to say... and you are absolutely right... is that cameras don't deter BAD behavior. I guess I assumed it was bad behavior that the parents were concerned about when hiring a child care with cameras.
So having cameras on the employees isn't going to make a difference unless they know they are actually being watched, the observer understands what they are seeing, and the behavior is corrected. The ones who don't want to be corrected move on.
It really is the same concept as casino cameras. Having cameras doesn't deter ALL of the bad behavior but it does correct some of it by both employees and patrons. The big difference is that casino cameras are watched by trained camera watchers who UNDERSTAND the business of gambling.
All of the links above are about center cameras where the employees knew they were on camera. In order to commit these acts of aggression or negligence they HAD to have had many many times when they got away with it while being on camera before it was actually caught.
People escalate their behavior when they are getting by with it at the lower level. They get trickier to beat the system. They are only comfortable with the serious behavior you see in the videos after having gotten away with the smaller then escalating behaviors.
I'm prolly one of the few people in the US who has been hired to watch center cameras. I can tell you that just having a video feed made it extremely difficult to tell what was going on and extremely easy for the staff to beat the system. I'm very experienced in child care and I eventually got really good at it but I had to teach myself what I was seeing and do A TON of intervention to get around their get arounds.
Cameras are pretty good for after the fact BUT the problem is the amount of staff time it takes to go through camera footage to disprove or prove an incident. It is EXTREMELY expensive in staff time.
We had a kid go home and tell them a "teacher" had pulled them by the arm that day. We had to go back through every day the teacher was in the room with the kid WITH the parents to show them that the teacher didn't pull the kids arm and actually had next to nothing to do with the kid. Then we went through the footage from the room to see if any OTHER adult did it. We validated that the child nor the accused were off of camera at the same time in the blind spots or adjoining storage rooms. It took a ton of time to disprove something an older child accused an adult of.
We had to watch the footage of the hallway, playground, gym, and room to prove that the child hadn't been mishandled in any way. We proved it to the parents but it cost more than the tuition they paid for many weeks.
After the fact gets really expensive to the point where we had to start charging a fee for the service. If the parent accusation was correct the fee was not due. If the parents accusation was not correct, they paid the staff time to review. It was the only way we could afford to prove or disprove (more expensive) that xyz did or didn't happen.
I think we may be thinking the same thing ... possibly. Having cameras does change behavior but it can be for good or evil.
Anywho... back to the original concept of home child care cameras and the business idea. I think it's a very shaky proposition. There are so few cases of child abuse and neglect in home daycare comparatively. Having a middle man in between you, the cameras, and the parents is a BAD plan IMHO. Cameras are cheap and if someone really wants to offer that as a service they can do what the op did and just do it themselves especially if there is a buck to be made once the equipment is paid off.
There are so many problems with it in a home setting, I just can't see it being something an average provider would allow. I wouldn't allow my own kid on a video feed in my home. I wouldn't allow my daycare parents to watch the other kids. I wouldn't trust parents that they wouldn't give the ability to watch the video to people they trust. I wouldn't trust that they wouldn't use captured video and post it on social media. The good... the bad... the usual... all of it.
Without sound it is extremely difficult to tell what is actually going on in a daycare. I wouldn't trust a newbie parent to have the skill set to be able to navigate what they are seeing with the exception of things like the amount of time a kid was in a bouncer, their kid playing with this or that, times that this or that was done etc. They may be able to count kids.
They wouldn't be able to tell if I was kind or mean. They wouldn't be able to tell if I was rough or gentle. They wouldn't know what went on at the changing diaper sites or bathrooms. For example, potty training is a VERY high time of abuse to children by parents and providers alike. That wouldn't be on camera for obvious reasons.
When I camera watched we always knew what parents were watching. They sent their kid in horizontal striped clothes or neon clothes that reflected on the camera. The infant parents would send them in the same outfit every day. That way they could pick their kid out of the others in the room.
We did some analysis of viewing and found that most parents watched quite a bit the first two weeks and then dropped to rarely ever watching it. There were always ones who had it on all the time (work from home types) and they were usually the ones calling in when Snowflake looked like she had been crying but couldn't really tell.
This was back in the early 2010 time so technology is way better and cheaper now. I think it would be a very different ball game now just six years later. I honestly can't IMAGINE having to deal with parents who are watching single fixed cameras without audio now. ugh... it would be awful.
Now should sound ever be included... (and I never suggested sound absent video... that would be worse) then parents could pretty easily tell what was going on. Until the legalities of that gets worked out state by state and the punishments for abuse of that by parents gets established... it's just not that great of a tool of deterrence of bad behavior. It IS better than nothing for the parents but a big pain in the rear for the owners of the centers.
Home day care... well I don't see that as ever being a well accepted service by the owners. If the state steps in and requires it then it may happen but until home providers are forced to do it... I don't see it being too common. The ability to offer it has been around for maybe eight or so years and I haven't heard too much about home providers offering it for viewing for the parents. Many have it for themselves now because it's so cheap but I would GUESS maybe five percent or so offer it to the parents to view. That's just a guess.