Working for Child Care Licensing

(day care inspector) Hi! Hi, what's your name? (male narrator) So, you think you want to work for for child care licensing? Protecting children in daycare is a very important job. As a day care inspector or investigator you can help make a difference in children's lives but these jobs are not for just everyone. Before you apply you need to know what you're signing up for. (Andrea) I will first start with my inspectors because I think that's where a lot of this kind of job starts and it's my inspectors who do applications of new day care facilities, they do the routine monitoring of day care facilities and they do standards investigations of day care facilities and when I talk about day care I'm going to talk about a facility which is what most of us associate day care with, which is your one in the neighborhood in a big brick building but we also have in-home day care (Erika) As an inspector our daily job is basically going into any day care, any home that is regulated through the state of Texas so that's what we do. We make sure that providers follow the minimum standards and so we are the regulators. We are the people that go in to make sure that providers are following everything by the book and to ensure they're providing a safe environment for the children (Andrea) When you work for the agency when you work for licensing, obviously you become acquainted with the minimum standard rules, and the minimum standard rules is basically what we require these facilities to follow on a day-to-day basis and their job is to take this book that we are now telling providers you have to follow, and they have to go in and inspect each standard to see that that provider is following the standard that's set forth in the Texas Administrative Code. But every inspector and investigator when they do come into an operation they are required to do what we consider a walk-through the operation where they are looking for anything that is obvious. (Erika) At first we write to the facility or the home or whatever it might be. We introduce ourselves. "Hi, I'm Erika with child care licensing, I'm here to do your annual inspection." (day care provider) "Oh hello, come in." We conduct a walk-through, we talk to the person that is in charge which might be the homeowner or might be the daycare director and we tell them what we're there for and we're there to conduct an annual inspection or an application inspection and we'll let them know what kind of standards we're looking at and to make sure that they're advised at what we're all going to be looking at whenever we're there. (Andrea) And them my investigator is more of a specialized position they do strictly abuse neglect investigations at facilities. (Naquea) Investigating abuse and neglect cases can be difficult. It can be very stressful, overwhelming, it can be very difficult because you have to speak to several different caregivers, you have to gather all the facts, you have to check with your supervisor, meet with law enforcement, medical profession, also we investigate child deaths so it can be very stressful. (Andrea) You're going to see the ugly side of human nature. Are you going to encounter it every day? No, you're not, but are you are going to encounter it at some point in your career? Yes you will. One of the toughest cases that I had was a heat-related death but in a situation that you probably wouldn't expect. I received a case that was an individual who was operating illegally out of her apartment. She roughly had six to eight children that she was caring for on a regular basis and she was placing the infant in the closet of her apartment and that's where she was sleeping them. And I had to sit in a multi-disciplinary team meeting and proceed to watch slide upon slide of the autopsy and at that moment it just really got to me that you know I'm sitting here looking at somebody else's child up on the screen having to go through this dissection of a sort for this medical examiner and it was just overwhelming to be in that situation. Very hard (Erika) We do have to go to illegal operations because we do investigations for that and so it is a little bit nerve wracking at times. You're nervous when you first walk in because you don't know what you're going into. You don't know when they open the door whose going to be behind it so in those types of situation a lot of the time you may want to take law enforcement with you. At illegal operations we do get a variety of things where it could be just a nice house and the provider was not aware of the minimum standards and did not know that they needed to be regulated and so that would be something that's easy but you can also go to the extremes where you can go into a home, you know, that is not in the best of conditions where also child care is being provided so there may be sanitary issues and things like that so that can present a health risk to the child. (Andrea) One of the big things that you're going to encounter is the dog situation. Everybody is a pet lover and has all these animals and you don't know if they're friendly or not and there's been a few times when you're held captive in your car because you don't know if this dog is going to bite or not but also we've run into situations where there are weapons accessible to children. Obviously that's a very intimidating situation to be in because if they're accessible to children obviously they're accessible to the adults in the household and so, you're gonna see it all, you don't know what you're going to run into, so... (Erika) We regulate whenever the operations are open so we go out early in the morning or late in the evening and sometimes during the weekends as well because day cares are open 24 hours sometimes they're open on Saturdays and Sundays to provide services to the parents so we have to be able to see all the hours of operations for the daycare so it might not be a typical 8 to 5 job. (Andrea) You definitely need a reliable vehicle. I will say that my staff covering as many counties as they cover put a lot of miles on their cars go through tires quite frequently and roughly oil changes every 6 weeks and so there's that ongoing maintenance that you have with your vehicle. (Naquea) Your car is kind of like your litte office and that's how you get around, that's how you conduct an investigation and unfortunately even though I have coworkers but I just can't call them all the time "Can you bring me somewhere?" because they have things they're taking care of too. You have to have a car. (Andrea) Make sure you account for that into your budget are we going to reimburse you for the mileage, yes but that's something that's going to be done at the end of the month and you won't get it until the following month. (Andrea) Your documentation is going to support the actions that you take in the field whether it's citing a deficiency on a provider or it's an investigation and you're determining if this individual abused or neglected a child so your documentation has got to support what you do as an individual out in the field (Erika) Bascially to balance fieldwork and paperwork in the office is to make sure that you always have a day in the office and make sure that you are responding to those phone calls and that paperwork that comes in so it's just organization. The other thing is that the documentation is better to be done while you are still in the operation, that way you don't have that to also take with you at the end of the day and still have the documents either at your home or in the office. Depending on the home or depending on the operation if they have the capability of providing me a room where I can sit and document I would do that but if they don't I just might do my inspection, complete everything that I need to do in talking to the provider and then go out into my car, leave and stop at a coffee shop or a restaurant, grab something to eat and maybe document there. (Andrea) They are definitely inundated with policies and minimum standards, they get all of this information thrown at them and we want them to be successful in their jobs and so we do a lot of pre basic-skills development, activities where they go out into the field and observe other staff so they are going to go out with inspectors and they're also going to go out with investigators so there's all of these activities they have to do before they go to training and so once they go to training we're going to break down that policy for them, we're also going to break down the miminum standards for them and then we're going to turn around and then have them somwehat mirror that out in the field, see what they learned and then take and apply it out in the field We don't just throw people out there and hope that they can swim. We do a lot of coaching and mentoring and guiding them in that direction so they can be successful. (Andrea) When I hire an inspector and an investigator I am looking for the same quality. I'm looking for an individual who can be flexible, adaptable, and self-motivated, can work independently but can also work well as a team. (Erika) I guess the best person for this job would be someone that can prioritize, is organized, and they can cope with changes and challenges (Andrea) There are some people that would not be well suited for this job I talk a lot, especially with new staff, that if you operate as an individual as somebody who only sees black and white, either right or wrong this may not be the job for you. Because while we do have very clear cut standards we operate a lot in the gray so a lot of judgement and assessment comes into play and if you can't operate in that you are not a good fit. (Naquea) "Hi, this is Naquia Walker with child care operations I'm here to conduct an investigation." (day care provider) "Come on in." The job is right for me because sometimes I like adventure, I like to be flexible, I like to be able to sometimes come to work and not know what my day will be like. Also, I like to investigate. "Miss Jessica, do you have those files ready for me to look at?" "Yes, I have them right here." "Thank you, it's ok if I sit on that side?" "Thank you." (Naquea) To be a successful investigator you have to be able to multitask, you have to be able to go into the center, speak to the director and also listen to the environment, listen to what's going on in case you hear something, be aware of your surroundings at all times because something can happen. You have to be to work with people, be able to talk to people and be aggressive on some issues that we don't like to talk about. (Erika) I love this job because I touch the lives of the children and I'm out in the community. I teach providers on minimum standards which is something I see as valuable so they're able to know what the standard is and what there is behind it, they'll be more responsive in doing the right thing. (Andrea) As an investigator, while it can be a rewarding position for some individuls for some individuals it is a very tough position. You are dealing with the bad and the ugly of human nature so if you're an individual that can't do that, then investigator is not for you. Maybe the inspector is a more upbeat and positive position and that's the direction you need to go.