It has recently come to light that there seems to be a difference of practice when it comes to day care regulations in Indiana. After the death of a two year old at a religious day care center, light has been shed on the fact that day care centers associated with faith based organizations are not held to the same standards as other, secular non-affiliated day care centers.
The child in question drowned in a baptismal pool and while it has been ruled as accidental, during an earlier inspection it was found that there were several broken high chairs, expired food being served to the children and dirty changing tables.
Indiana recognizes three types of child care centers; licensed centers, licensed homes and unlicensed registered ministries. In the state of Indiana, regular centers must adhere to 192 regulations, day care center operated out of homes have 94 regulations to abide by, but unlicensed registered ministries have only 21 regulations to follow.
Melanie Brizzi, child-care administrator for the state's Bureau of Child Care says there are now more unlicensed faith-based day-care centers in Indiana -- 730 -- than licensed centers -- 601.
Faith-based day-care centers don't need to meet a host of regulations, state officials said. One of the most critical is a requirement that children be within "sight and sound" of an adult. But background check requirements are not standardized across these license types either, and not surprisingly faith based centers have lower standards.
Of course this could be a huge risk for children who attend these day care centers. In addition to being subject to a potentially environment that has fewer safety regulations, there is no telling is the lack of standards become a draw for people that can’t get passed background checks in other places. For the safety of children parent advocacy groups in the state of Indiana are now lobbying to have the same stringent rules applied to day care centers in churches, just as the public day care centers are, including mandating that all employees go through background checks.
Companies like backgroundchecks.com can be a real asset to these daycare centers as they have products that are specifically tailored to ensuring the safety of children. One of these products is known as the US Offender OneSEARCH. This product will search sex offender registry information in all states and report back to organizations immediately if any of their employees have been registered. Having the policies in place and taking the time to do this will certainly lower the risk that anything would happen to children in any Indiana day care center.
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About Michael Klazema The author
Michael Klazema is the lead author and editor for Dallas-based backgroundchecks.com with a focus on human resource and employment screening developments
