Joseph Matthew Allen
By Peter Galuszka
Virginia’s attitudes about light regulation are coming home to roost in a most sensitive area – day care for toddlers.
The point was underlined Wednesday when Chesterfield County charged Laurie F. Underwood, 46, with only a misdemeanor involving the death of one–year-old Joseph Matthew Allen who died after a fire at Underwood’s house Oct. 21. She had been operating her day care operation without proper state licenses — a common occurrence in the state.
The death was a little more than a month after two children — 21-month-old Kayden Curtis and 9-month-old Dakota Penn-Williams – died at another unregulated home day care operation in Lynchburg.
Both operations were supposed to be licensed but neither had permits. And, in the Chesterfield case, no government agency cross-checked to see that Underwood’s home day care operation had proper licensing. Underwood did have a county business license.
Home day care centers handling from five to 12 children are supposed to be licensed by the state Department of Social Services. But no one checks on unlicensed day care centers, Joron Planter, a department spokesperson, told me in October. The only time they do check is if someone complains. She said: “we have no way of knowing [the child care provider] even exists.”
Home day care centers must get businesses licenses from their localities. In Chesterfield, there are 344 listed but the Department of Social Services has only 156 on its tally. One way to check would be for the county and the state to check each others’ records and investigate, but no one does that.
And that is why Virginia is among the eight worst states for proper home day care regulation, according to Virginia child resource group.ranks among the bottom eight states for its regulation of in-home day cares, according to Child Care Aware of America, a national watchdog group.
Even more jarring is the fact that The Washington Post ran a deeply reported series of stories earlier this year noting that since 2004, there were 60 children killed in home day care centers. Of them, the majority, 43, were in unlicensed operations.
In the Chesterfield case, a fire caused by disposed cinders began in a garage and spread to the rest of the house. Underwood tried to get the seven children out, but in the confusion, the one-year-old was left behind. He had been strapped in a car seat in the home. He was removed by fire fighters but later died of acute thermal inhalation.
The parents of the boy, Matthew and Jacquelyn Allen, have told reporters they are upset at the laxity of the criminal charges.
But then, this is Virginia, where pandering to the anti-regulation dogma is more important than protecting toddlers’ lives.
