MOSCOW, September 2 (RIA Novosti) - At least 43 child deaths in Virginia are the outcome of unregulated childcare since 2004, The Washington post estimated.
The 43 deaths found in unregulated childcare facilities included 22 sleep-related deaths, 10 involving physical abuse, three accidental and one natural.
“We know children receive care in unregulated settings and that some of those settings are unsafe,” Lynne Williams, director of the Virginia Department of Social Services’ licensing division told The Washington Post.
“These facilities are not inspected or monitored in any way, and unfortunately there’s little we can do to prevent incidents from happening. For unregulated facilities, we are only able to investigate after a complaint is filed or if we receive an allegation of an illegal operation,” Williams added, the newspaper reported.
In Virginia there are some 7,700 regulated childcare providers caring for 364,000 children, but nearly double that amount of children require day care, according to census data, The Washington Post reported.
Sharon Veatch, head of Child Care Aware of Virginia, estimates some 200,000 children are cared for in unregulated settings, The Washington Post reported.
Virginia allows caregivers who watch five children or less to be exempt from licensing and regulations including training or inspections, but no one is checking if childcare centers are abiding by the five-child limit. Many children, who died in unregulated settings, were in homes with more than five children. There are no required criminal background checks for unregulated daycare providers.
Child Care Aware of America, a national child resource group, ranks Virginia in the bottom eight states, partly based on the five-child limit rule. While the majority of states have stricter regulations than Virginia, all but 12 states allow some form of unregulated childcare.
