How Safe Is My Child’s Daycare Center?
Even though you want to be the person who takes care of your child so that you can ensure they’re learning proper skills and being treated correctly, that’s not always possible when you have an office job or other obligations during the day. Sometimes you need to leave your child in the hands of others at a daycare.
No matter how much research you do for a daycare, you still might not know if the caretakers you chose for your child have a safe and nurturing facility. If your child is harmed while at daycare, then that could fall under premises liability. A premises liability lawyer from Bey & Associates can help you get justice for the harm done to your child at their daycare center.
Let’s take a look at how you can know how safe your child’s daycare center is.
Daycare Safety Checklist
When choosing your child’s daycare center, there are some things you need to consider to ensure they’re safe under that staff’s care. Additionally, you’ll want to continue evaluating the facility on these factors to make sure that the level of care stays the same or improves. If the level of care plummets, you’ll want to be aware so that you can remove your child and find a better option.
Here is a daycare safety checklist that you should go through to pick the safest possible facility for your child while you’re at work or doing other things during the day:
- Visit the daycare and inspect the facilities
- Visit separately unannounced
- See if the toys and equipment are safe
- Look in the bathrooms and all common areas to see cleanliness levels
- Ask about surveillance and cameras to monitor the kids and for security
- Look for sharp surfaces
- Ask about the staff and their credentials
- Ask about background checks and staff evaluation
- Ask about other kids who attend the daycare
- Talk to the parents of the other kids at the facility
- Ask about their safety and emergency protocols
- Ask about their illness and sanitation protocols
- Talk to your pediatrician about the facility
- Look up reviews online
While you’re not going to fully know how they’ll treat your child until they’re in their care, all of these steps can help you feel more confident in your decision and trust that the daycare is a safe option. After you make your choice, continue to follow up and drop in unannounced.
One of the best ways to know if the facility is safe for your child is to talk to them yourself. If your child says they feel unsafe, or if they tell you that something happened while at daycare, then listen to them. As their parent, you know when they’re being honest. If you think they’re telling stories, then talk to the staff, but if you think it was a serious situation, then you should listen to your child.
Can I Take Legal Action?
You might be wondering what your child’s daycare is responsible for while your kid is in their care. Interestingly enough, many daycare facilities will try to save themselves from legal trouble by including a waiver in their paperwork when you sign your child up to attend their facility. Usually, it will say that the daycare is not responsible if your child is hurt under their care and that you cannot sue them.
Even if you sign this, though, you likely can still take legal action if you find that your child was harmed under their care. The daycare owes a duty of care to your child. This means that if they are negligent and allow your child to suffer from injuries and other damages, then they have breached that duty of care, and you can take legal action.
It’s important to remember that with limited staff taking care of children, accidents are bound to happen. But if a serious accident happens that physically or emotionally injures your child, then you have a right to pursue legal action. Talking to a lawyer can help you determine what your next steps are and what you can recover from the daycare that was supposed to keep your child safe.
You Can Trust the Lawyers at Bey & Associates
At Bey & Associates, we understand that you take the care of your child very seriously. When you trust a daycare to watch your kid during the day, you expect them to treat them just as well as you would, if not better. When your child gets injured from their negligence, you could use the help of our legal team.
We’ll investigate what happened and handle the legal side of things so that you can focus on your child’s physical and emotional recovery. Contact our office today so that we can discuss your legal options and where to go from here.
