Kierra Harrison Foundation

Death In Day Care

Death In A Daycare(c)
Contributed by :
Pamela Rowse, R.N, of The Kierra Harrison Foundation for Child Care Safety

On March 5th 1997, my 14 month old grand-daughter Kierra Ashlie Danielle Harrison died following a two day battle to survive a fatal skull fracture sustained while in the care of licensed day care provider Alicia D.Wegner in Las Vegas Nevada. Kierra had been in Ms. Wegner's care only two (2) weeks when we received the frightening phone call that she was being rushed to the local emergency room. Kierra never regained consciousness and succumbed to her injuries that were outlined as equivalent to a fall from a second story window onto concrete. As Kierra laying fighting for her life, which was not to be granted, I made a promise to her to do everything in my power to prevent this from happening to another child.

Ms. Wegner was charged with Murder by Child Abuse and indicted by the Clark County District Court Grand Jury for those charges. In the days that followed Kierra's death, we painfully learned that Ms. Wegner had been issued her "license" by the Clark County Child Care Licensing Office in spite of previous charges of child abuse against her for her own children two (2) years before.

The shock of this revelation spurred me to initiate a full-scale investigation into the process of child care licensing and the results proved to be devastating. As a registered nurse, I have committed my life to meeting the Healthcare needs of people for the last 26 years, what I learned about the state of child care licensing in the United States terrified me. Furthermore, it activated an inherent drive to take action and protect others from suffering the same or similar trauma that my family and I were forced to endure.

"More Tragedy"

Awareness has traditionally spurred cognition. Since Kierra's death the trail of child care tragedies has opened and poured forth with stories of grief and pain and horror. The implications and occurrences are national and have no socio-economic boundaries. Investigations by U.S. News and World Report uncovered 76 confirmed deaths in child care in 1996 and this was with only 50% of the states documenting statistics and the process for that statistical collection was not scientifically established.

In Texas where they recently revamped their reporting system and do collect detailed data, twenty-two (22) day care deaths and 134 serious injuries were reported for 1996. By taking the actual deaths in Texas and Massachusetts, who also does detailed reporting, and projecting them on the per capita population nationally, the number would be between 240 and 320 per year. When the national statistics for all American kids between the ages of one (1) and four (4) dying from accidents is compared to this number the picture becomes even more terrifying. In 1995 2,260 child deaths were reported and 825 of those deaths were from motor vehicle collisions alone.

In addition, it is important to remember that these numbers do not even begin to reflect the children that have been physically and emotionally traumatized at the hands of their licensed day care providers. One week following Kierra's death a second child was found to have two skull fractures, one anterior and the other posterior. The degree of healing found on x-ray correlated to the date of an incident where the mother had retrieved the child from the Wegner day care with numerous abrasions and scratches on her face. The question lies, "how many more were there"?.
The following page outlines a nail-sketch of the acknowledged and publicized tragedies, injuries and deaths. This only represents a sampling of the horror that has invaded the lives of American families following their heart-wrenching decision to enter the "child care" arena. Lulled into the security that "licensing" means not only safety, but quality, their mere daily existence has been forever destroyed from the senseless loss of their most precious beings.

"Background & History"

Child Care has not been historically recognized as an "industry". The process of caring for children outside of the "home" evolved slowly as the demand for second incomes increased and mothers of small children were forced to serve as "heads of household" and "sole providers". In the 1970's less than 50% of the women in the United States were actively holding positions in the work-force. That statistic has risen to over 60% in 1997 and is predicted to be over 75% by the year 2000. This accounts for a devastating 4.6 million infants, toddlers, and preschool children from every income group spending at least a part of their day in licensed day care.

With the implemented new welfare reform laws, some 2 million parents (mainly mothers) formerly on welfare will joined the work force and their children need care outside the home. Under pressure of welfare reform, many state legislatures are now scrambling to create new facilities as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Within three years, three (3) out of four (4) American women with children under five (5) will be working and need child care. These numbers are not generated by want or desire to place children in the care of someone else, but from "need".

"State of the STATES"

Traditionally, the responsibility of "regulating" the child care industry as fallen on the states and counties. We now know that this approach has proven to be ineffective in establishing not only "SAFE CARE", but quality care for our children.

In a recently completed review of day care standards nationwide, the New York- based Commonwealth Fund, a national foundation working with Yale University experts, assessed the quality of day care state by state, based on indicators such as child-adult ratios, programming and care giver qualifications.

The results uncovered a frightening picture of the state of child care licensing, regulation and the administration of those regulations nationally. Of the fifty states, the following was identified:

No state was found to have "GOOD" child care regulations Seventeen (17) states were found to have "acceptable" regulations Thirty (30) states were found to have "poor" regulations Four (4) states were found to have "no" regulations in place.

With no minimum guidelines or standards to base their regulation development and enforcement on, states and counties flounder on a daily basis in an arena where they have no sound expertise. Decisions regarding the day care licensing process are made with limited consideration as to the ramifications and repercussions.

Knee-jerk reactions to critical shortages of day-care services such as the one recently noted in Clark County Nevada, demonstrate the profound lack of awareness regarding the seriousness of the issues. A growing need for day care coverage has prompted "The Economic Opportunity Board" to invite anyone in the valley interested in obtaining a "Home Day Care License" to come into the office where they will help them with the licensing application process.

In July of this year, the Clark County Child Care Licensing Office was granted an additional full-time position in an attempt to "fill-in the gap" in license processing. This position was approved in the wake of Kierra's traumatic death and the flurry of activity that occurred to correct an inadequate system for processing and granting of child care licenses. In spite of the recognized need, the Clark County Commissioners still proposed legislation mandating licensed day care centers in all of it's casinos. This was done in an attempt to ease the mounting anger that resulted from the death of a 7 year old in a casino in Primm NV due to parental neglect. Passage of that proposed legislation would have added over 400 day care centers requiring licensing, monitoring and enforcement of already poorly designed regulations and cause grid- lock in an already over-whelmed licensing system.

The Nevada State Legislature passed day-care reform this year which provided tax assistance for employers supplementing employee day care costs. However, one of the most restrictive of the guidelines is the annual income limit that was imposed on the "qualified" employee. The assistance only applies to those individuals with annual salaries of $18,000 a year or less. Nothing in the legislation addressed licensing or minimum standards in the day care setting, nor did it address critical safety issues.

In a country where great care is taken to ensure safety and protection regulations for meat-packing, pesticide controls, endangered mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, invertebrates and plants, it is appalling to know that our most precious resource our "children" is over-looked and dangerously jeopardized. Critical concerns about child care safety have lead to no action on the part of our federal law makers and enforcers.

Although restaurants are shut-down on a regular basis for even minor hygiene violations, statistics show that day-care centers in America are rarely closed. As a standard, licensing authorities work to keep troubled centers open to prevent gaps in child care coverage. The case of A Child's Place day care center in Guthrie Oklahoma is a classic example. 415 registered complaints against the facility prior to little Michael Robinson's death and the state continued to let them operate. In this case, the statewide licensing coordinator for the Oklahoma Department of Human Resources stated her agency had moved to deny the facility its license before the child's death and were unsuccessful.

By Federal law, violation of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 carries with it a $100,000 fine and imprisonment of one year for individuals and a $200,000 fine for organizations. Christine Schwartzberg, the licensed provider/owner of Chrissy's Kids day-care center in Plantation Florida, was fined a mere $100 for her numerous day care regulation violations resulting in Jeremy Fiedelholtz's death. It is impossible for any rational, or semi-intelligent individual to draw a correlation between the penalties for the destruction of the American burying beetle and those for the death of a three month old child. In addition to the penalties imposed, the Endangered Species Act mandates the following provisions:

Protection of critical habitat (habitat required for the survival and recovery of the species
Creation of a recovery plan for each listed species.

Where in this country do we see even a fraction of this kind of effort being taken to protect our children?

Please join us in the second part of our series on child care entitled "Of Butcher's and Bakers and Candle Stick Makers". This segment will outline the current state regulations, licensing investigations and research as well as the inherent dangers in our system as it exists today.

Submitted by:Pamela Rowse, R.N. - Spurred by the tragic murder of her 14 month old Grand daughter, by her licensed day care provider, Pam has applied 26 years of nursing experience to a 26 month search for answers and data regarding the child care industry today.

In October of 1997, Pam took their campaign to the White House and in January of 1998 the "National Child Care Act" was introduced by the Clinton Administration without licensing and enforcement regulations.

This issue has taken her to the National Media...with appearances on MSNBC Issues Live, Geraldo Rivera, Maury Povich, and U.S. News and World Report.

Pam has recently been appointed to the National Advisory Council for the Shaken Baby Alliance, will be functioning as a member of the newly formed Nevada Women's Leadership Council. She continues to work closely with families in all states who are having difficulty with criminal and civil investigation, prosecution and processing of child care injuries and deaths.