Well at this point I have opened my own childcare here in my home. There is no latchkey program and the school is not aware of any after school programs. I decided to start my own since I had to leave my job. I do it for a low rate so that (in this economy) I can make a little money and help parents that were in my position. I only have taken three children because I love having this low adult to child ratio. I try to give these kids the same treatment I would love for my children to receive. We have a lot of fun and my social work background has given me the experience to help parents who have children with developmental disabilities. With the low ratio and the help of a friend I can help these children with their therapeutic interventions and give them one on one time. I provide two snacks and lunch for the reasonable rate of 18.00 per day. I do not charge unless the kids are here. Which I think is very fair since I have a low overhead.
I made reports to the DCS office but they went nowhere (one of the board members is a State Police Detective that I was informed Called DCS and "smoothed" things over.) I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper but it has not been published. As far as the confidentiality question I never told the DCS director that there was an open case on a child. Just that this person was turned in to DCS by her staff and I didn't want my child around this person. As far as the director not turning this parent into DCS she was fully aware that this baby was brought to daycare with only an 8 oz bottle of formula for an 8 hour day. No other baby food. On occasion the mother would bring in one jar of baby food but no formula. I seen this baby the other day and DCS did their Magic! She is thriving and mom looked much happier. They gave her the skills she needed to care for her child properly. In my daycare I have the parents sign a contract and in there it states that I will call DCS if there are any signs of abuse and neglect. My parents are also aware of my position before I became a childcare provider. Since my attempts to make reports the "good" staff at the daycare have left because of the incident. I do not know many people in this county since I didn't grow up here and word of mouth got around and parents are hearing that "a social workers child was bused there!" I also found out from a former daycare director (which that daycare is no longer in business) that she fired the teacher that did this to my son previous to her employment with the daycare we used. She was fired for tying up a child with dishtowels because she couldn't "control" him. My mind tells me that not all day cares are like this but my heart won't let go of the pain of knowing what happened to my child. I cannot bring myself to allow this to happen again so my kids will never attend daycare again. It is very hard to trust again.

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