Oregon backslides on key pledges to improve day care oversight

A parent picks up a toddler at an Oregon day care center in this archived photo. The state of Oregon closed the facility in 2017.(Torsten Kjellstrand)

Oregon regulators have failed to deliver on a promise to make public nearly every red flag known about a licensed childcare center, a review by the The Oregonian/OregonLive shows.

Officials with the state's Office of Child Care retreated on their pledge to post every complaint against childcares on a state website, worried in part about backlash from day care owners and their powerful union.

Regulators also backtracked on a promise to identify each day care found by the state to have abused or neglected children, citing bureaucratic challenges.

The state did come close to fulfilling a pledge to start sending inspectors to any facility where a child was seriously injured, and to do so within three business days. Inspectors met the deadline 90 percent of the time from November through March, officials said.

But the childcare agency wasn't tracking how often the goal was met until asked about it by The Oregonian/OregonLive. In response, officials repeatedly provided incorrect information over three months while blaming a computer system for their difficulty.

The Office of Child Care made its commitments to improve oversight and accountability amid intensive coverage by the newsroom last year.

In October, regulators said they would consistently visit day cares where children are injured. In December, agency leaders vowed to expand the information available online, beginning in March. Gov. Kate Brown demanded further reforms following the newsroom's reporting in June exposing licensing gaps.

Some parents say they are disappointed the state has backtracked on its pledge to share certain information with parents.

"Even knowing that there might be issues is really helpful because, if other parents are like me, they would choose a different childcare," said Ali Palmer, a mother of three who stopped working as a teacher to care for her kids after a troubling day care experience. "It might raise the standard for all the childcares that are licensed by the state, and that would be good for everyone."

State officials acknowledge they haven't fully delivered on their promises but say significant progress is being made, including new rules, hiring more staff, conducting more site visits.

And they have made more information available to consumers on the state's child care website. It now lists any deaths or injuries at a facility and whether or not its license has been suspended or revoked.

"Reform of this scale cannot be responsibly implemented overnight," the Office of Child Care said in response to written questions. "We recognize that more needs to be done and commit to parents that we will continue to improve oversight and identify regulatory gaps to ensure their children are cared for in safe and healthy environments."

The push to improve Oregon's regulation of more than 4,200 day cares began under the watch of Miriam Calderon, hired by Brown last summer as director of early learning. l Among other things, Calderon said the state's website was inadequate and promised that more information would be shared.

Calderon and Dawn Taylor, the childcare director, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Oregon would post online all complaints against day care providers. They said that would include all complaints deemed to be valid, invalid and those that regulators were unable to substantiate.

But search the state's new website, launched in March, and users will find only valid complaints online. Invalid and unsubstantiated complaints are not listed.

State officials now say they have identified potential legal risks for sharing all complaint information. Officials say they are worried about defaming a childcare provider. They say it is "reasonable to not disclose" complaints in which regulators determined a complaint was invalid.

The Office of Child Care declined to address why officials didn't consider those issues before pledging to post all complaints. Officials also declined to specify when or how the issue came to their attention.

Childcare officials say they will eventually post the most recent two years of complaints that investigators were unable to substantiate. Officials would not say when they expect that to happen.

But regulators did say they chose to omit complaints older than two years because they've identified "potential contract issues" with the state's childcare union.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees represents licensed in-home day care owners.

The union's contract, which the state signed in September, specifies that valid complaints will be shared for 10 years while unsubstantiated complaints will be shared for only two years.

Asked why the state didn't seek to modify that contract language last year, officials said the content of the childcare website was not discussed during negotiations.

It appears that Oregon did post a full spectrum of complaints this spring – whether by accident or on purpose – prompting strong union complaints. On March 31, the union's representative, Anneliese Sheahan, emailed the childcare director to protest.

Sheahan noted that "complaints that were not valid" from three and five years ago were showing online. She also complained that injury data lacked key clarifications, with seizure statistics being treated the same as broken bones, creating a misleading picture about safety.

"They feel like this is casting shade on their programs," she wrote.

Eva Rippeteau, political coordinator for AFSCME, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that providers want parents to have useful information to determine if children are properly supervised. But they don't want parents worrying that kids won't be safe anywhere.

"We need to be thoughtful," she said. "Because if we provide too much information, I think it muddies the intent."

Childcare regulators have similarly retreated from a pledge to identify day cares with documented histories of abuse and neglect, which the Department of Human Services investigates.

Childcare officials now say they have "confidentiality concerns" about sharing information online about founded cases of abuse and neglect.

The regulators also point to technical problems. They do not have a system in place to share data with the human services agency, they said, making it difficult to maintain accurate information.

Asked why the Office of Child Care didn't recognize those challenges last year, the agency said: "As with any sizeable project, new, unexpected challenges surface as progress is made. In this case, we did not anticipate the legal risks and confidentiality concerns with posting some of this information."

Agency officials say they have not decided whether they will eventually identify day cares with founded abuse and neglect cases. In the interim, they say parents should contact the Department of Human Services with questions.

Childcare officials similarly have failed to track progress on a new initiative requiring site visits following child injuries, The Oregonian/OregonLive found.

On Oct. 18, Calderon issued a directive that regulators must visit a day care within three business days after receiving a report that a child was injured and received medical attention.

That change was significant. In the past, officials rarely visited day cares after injuries. They hoped the new practice would help regulators address safety and health hazards to children.

But state official never bothered to track progress across the agency.

When The Oregonian/OregonLive requested records showing whether or not Calderon's directive on injury investigations was being carried out successfully, the agency's director, Taylor, couldn't produce a single document.

Separately, The Oregonian/OregonLive asked the Office of Child Care on March 28 to quantify how frequently visits were made within the new three-day timeline. It took three months to get an answer.

On April 20, state regulators told the newsroom they had logged 179 injuries and made timely visits 87 percent of the time. In response to questions, state officials later changed their answer to 77 percent, then 100 percent, finally settling on 90 percent on June 21.

One statement that accompanied inaccurate statistics said child care regulators were continuing to develop "more robust tracking and reporting mechanisms."

State officials say they provided inaccurate information because their data system lacks the ability to run a simple report measuring timeliness for injury visits. Visits in response to an injury were sometimes logged as other types of trips. Compounding problems, officials who manually reviewed the data misinterpreted some information.

Officials say managers do review progress on a case-by-case basis and "routinely follow up" with licensing staff to ensure visits are conducted within three business days. Managers track progress through manual data reviews, team meetings and individual supervision, the Office of Child Care said in a statement.

Regulators originally told The Oregonian/OregonLive that any late visits were "unacceptable." Officials later said they were "pleased to report" that 90 percent of visits happened on time.

State officials are now looking to limit the range of injuries that require reporting to the state and corresponding visits by regulators.

Right now, officials lack an official definition for "serious injury" but consider it to be anything that requires attention from a licensed health care professional, such as a physician, emergency medical technician or nurse.

They've proposed changing the definition to:

Injuries requiring surgery or hospitalization; choking or unexpected breathing problems; unconsciousness; concussion; poisoning; medication overdose; broken bones; severe head or neck injuries; chemical contact; severe burns; severe bleeding or stitches; shock or confusion; allergies requiring the use of an EpiPen; or a near drowning.

Notably, the proposal excludes injuries that prompted a visit to a physician as a precaution.

State officials say it's not clear what impact the new definition of injuries will have on the number of injuries reported.

-- Brad Schmidt

503-294-7628

@_brad_schmidt

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