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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Communicating Developmental/Behavioral Concerns to DCPS
Unregistered 06:44 AM 03-23-2011
I am a registered member but staying unregistered on this one. Got word from my licensor that it is now a providers responsibility to "monitor child's development. As soon as a developmental delay or special need is suspected, it is important to report this to a parent to ensure that the child will have access to early and appropriate interventions, if needed." We are to collect data, document modifications that WE have made to meet the dc kids needs/results, schedule meeting with dcp, give dcps resources, end meeting with a plan. WHAT? I have a 4 year degree as well as 2 years additional schooling plus all of the hours required by my state to have my license. My education is not in child development. Although I can see some things that some of my dc children might need work in AND I have mentioned things casually (non-threatening and kind) to dcps, I have been told basically to mind my business. Why is my county requiring this? Anyone else hearing that they should be doing these things? I don't get paid enough. If we don't have these meetings with parents and discuss our concerns, can this come back to bite us providers later? After trying to do this in the past and being told to butt out by parents, I really don't want to get involved. I want to do my job to the best of my ability each day, teach, play, care, love. I am not a happy provider today after hearing that this is now part of our job. What else is the government going to make us providers do in the course of our day?
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Blackcat31 07:05 AM 03-23-2011
What state are you in? How can a state require a family child care provider to monitor a child's development? If you are not trained in the field then why can they say it is your responsibility? Are they paying more you to do this? That is alot of extra hours and paperwork. Are they providing you with training to make this assessment?

If you are licensed as a family child care provider, I would think the only requirements of you are to provide good, quality care, not observation and assessment.

Plus, what one person thinks is normal is not the same as another's...which is why we have early childhood professionals....so they can observe and assess.
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Unregistered 07:13 AM 03-23-2011
I'm in MN. Will you other MN providers let me know if you are hearing this from your licensing office? I'm dismayed!
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Zoe 07:33 AM 03-23-2011
That's really odd. I have a degree in Special Education, but as a childcare provider, I would never think about doing all that! It is not my business to do all that in a childcare setting. Yes, if I had some suspicion, I might casually bring it up as a concern, but from there, it's the parents' job to do anything.

As a parent, I'd want to know if the daycare provider had any concerns, but I'd be a little bit upset if they "evaluated" my child!

I'm curious to see what your licensor has to say about this. I would imagine some serious training would have to take place for this to be legal.
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gbcc 08:17 AM 03-23-2011
Wonderful another thing we can be sued for. What if we are not aware of anything off target? The parent goes to the Dr and the Dr. notices. Then are we responsible because we didn't catch it a year ago?
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jen 08:28 AM 03-23-2011
I'm curious about your state as well!!!!!
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youretooloud 08:32 AM 03-23-2011
Originally Posted by Zoe:
That's really odd. I have a degree in Special Education, but as a childcare provider, I would never think about doing all that! It is not my business to do all that in a childcare setting.
I agree. It also forces providers to look for things that aren't really there. Behaviors that annoy us for instance, aren't always a lifelong problem.

I was a hair chewer as a kid... but, I didn't need early intervention. I probably needed a hair cut. If a provider was LOOKING for problems, they might have tried to refer me to a specialist in anxiety behaviors.

I had a parent call me after EIGHT years and ask me why I didn't notice that her son was developmentally delayed. But, he WASN'T delayed. He walked at 14 months, he crawled normally, he was a delightful child... but, they moved before he was two. He was absolutely normal. There was nothing I missed, and I resented the idea that I was somehow responsible for his problems in THIRD grade.

I know I'm dealing with this issue right now with a little girl... but, I think in this case it's different, because the problems are very obvious. Even to someone who doesn't work with children.
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Zoe 10:19 AM 03-23-2011
Originally Posted by Unregistered:
I'm in MN. Will you other MN providers let me know if you are hearing this from your licensing office? I'm dismayed!
I'm in MN as well. I haven't heard anything about this, and if I did, I would be asking some SERIOUS questions to my licensor about the process and to what extent we need to go through. The ability to identify and conference with a parent about developmental and behavioral delays is complicated, and while we should all know about basic child development, this is way too much to ask.

Talk to you licensor again about what exactly she is expecting and where she's getting her information. I'm really hoping that she was misinformed, because I'm not really happy to hear about that.
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Blackcat31 10:29 AM 03-23-2011
Originally Posted by Zoe:
I'm in MN as well. I haven't heard anything about this, and if I did, I would be asking some SERIOUS questions to my licensor about the process and to what extent we need to go through. The ability to identify and conference with a parent about developmental and behavioral delays is complicated, and while we should all know about basic child development, this is way too much to ask.

Talk to you licensor again about what exactly she is expecting and where she's getting her information. I'm really hoping that she was misinformed, because I'm not really happy to hear about that.
My licensor says that she sees nothing in any of the upcoming information and proposals that say anthing about us being responsible for assessing children and having to report that. She said there would be no way that burden could be placed on providers unless there were studies to prove it was helpful and necessary and that would only be after providers were trained to do this.

.....she did say one thing that is in the proposals for change in the next year is regulating the number of hours a child can be in childcare per week....which I thought was interesting since this is a hot thread topic here right now. She said recommendations are to not allow providers to care for a child any longer than 10 hours per day and/or 45 hours per week max. I started to ask questions but she said she has no idea how it would work or anything yet since it is only a proposal to be looked at.

MN providers; you can subscribe to all DHS 'changes and updates' e-mails so that you receive the same notifications of changes to any of the DHS departments that our licensor does.....I will look for the link and post if anyone is interested. I get e-mails daily and liked getting them at first but then they started coming so quickly and so many that I got tired of reading them all. They are written like legal documents and often hard to read.
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jen 10:34 AM 03-23-2011
I would love the link! Thanks!

Unregistered...can I ask which county you are in?
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Zoe 10:34 AM 03-23-2011
Thanks Black Cat! My licensor is the most awesome lady and if something like this was going on in my county, I would have heard about it by now. She's very knowledgeable in all aspects of childcare and I trust her completely to inform me of important changes.
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jen 10:36 AM 03-23-2011
Originally Posted by Blackcat31:
.....she did say one thing that is in the proposals for change in the next year is regulating the number of hours a child can be in childcare per week....which I thought was interesting since this is a hot thread topic here right now. She said recommendations are to not allow providers to care for a child any longer than 10 hours per day and/or 45 hours per week max. I started to ask questions but she said she has no idea how it would work or anything yet since it is only a proposal to be looked at.
OMG..best thing EVER!
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Blackcat31 10:46 AM 03-23-2011
Here you go! Just fill out the info and you will start getting all the DHS bulletins....but BEWARE...they come frequently!!

http://www.dhs.state.mn.us/main/idcp...Name=id_000305
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Tags:communicating, concerns, development, intervention, licensing
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