Where are the Children - Are they Safe?

The Story of Vanessa Porter - a Casualty

Two year-old Vanessa Porter was known for her bright eyes and sweet smile, two things that will never again be the same because while she was in the care of an unlicensed child care ministry, her face was crushed by a 40 pound television.

After the staff at St. Mary’s Playhouse Daycare in Greensburg pulled that television off the injured child, they phoned her mother instead of calling 911. When Vanessa was later examined at Riley Hospital for Children after being airlifted there, it was discovered that her injuries included a broken nose, broken cheek bones, a broken jaw and eye sockets that had been crushed.

Tragic stories like this get repeated all too often, because Indiana fails to regulate health and safety at taxpayer-funded, unlicensed child-care ministries such as St. Mary’s in the same way that it regulates licensed facilities. In fact, Indiana Code §12 17.2 6 provides an exemption to child care ministries from licensing.

The only thing state law requires of these ministries is that they “provide notice” to the parents of each child who attends daycare at their facilities stating that the ministry does not have the same level of fire safety protection as a licensed child care center. That’s it.

Typically, buildings used for ministry daycare are old and were not designed, nor are they inspected, with preschoolers in mind. Often these buildings lack proper safety exits and fire escapes, making fire the number one safety issue for their young inhabitants. In addition, old buildings often have deteriorating lead paint that children can ingest by breathing the lead dust or by eating paint chips. Lead poisoning, which can cause delayed development, stunted growth, hearing loss and nervous system damage, can have long-range and serious implications for a child’s ability to learn and live a normal life.

Another very troublesome safety issue with unlicensed daycare is the unspecified ratio of caregivers to children and the lack of education requirements for caregivers. Often in these situations there are too many children and too few properly trained caregivers, another prescription for disaster.

As taxpayers, you and I are paying for preschoolers to attend these substandard, unlicensed facilities. Twenty percent of federal child care voucher funds that come to Indiana are distributed to unlicensed child care ministries. An estimated 25 percent of the 50,000 children on the federal child care voucher program in Indiana attend these ministries.

As a community of caring citizens and as taxpayers, we need to raise our voice to reform the way our state regulates and licenses child care facilities. Indiana is one of only 10 states that supports child care without regulating health and safety.

All of our children deserve to be protected. Let’s finally take the step and demand that government funds flow only into licensed child care facilities. Parents are always free to choose unlicensed or ministry care if that is their wish. But we should hold our government accountable for the type of child care we fund with our tax dollars. If we had taken this step months ago, Vanessa Porter, and her family, would probably still be smiling.