Feds Announce First Nationwide Safety Standards For Child Care
Personal injury attorney Eddie Farah has been concerned about several recent high-profile cases in Florida where children have been injured or died as a result of negligence in child-care facilities and homes. That is why a news article that reported the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is seeking to impose tough new standards on child-care centers that receive government money sparked his interest.
The federal government is concerned that the current mix of health and safety regulations standards that vary from state to state do not adequately protect children in child-care settings. Experts have argued that the standards in some states are far too low.
The Washington Post reports that as many as one in five children that are granted a government child care subsidy are also being cared for in unlicensed and unregulated child-care centers with absolutely no safety and health standards.
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that the new regulations are long overdue. “Fifteen years have passed since we last updated our childcare rules — years of tragic stories of children lost and families devastated because there were no safety standards in place to protect them.”
HHS officials told the Washington Post that although increasing reports of child deaths and injuries prompted the push for the tougher regulations, the department also chose to act because emerging science indicates how important the early years of childhood are in terms of brain development and future success.
The regulations would require that all the 513,000 government subsidized child-care facilities and homes be trained in first-aid procedures and would require that all workers be fingerprinted and have their backgrounds checked. The proposed HHS regulations would also make a quality rating of those facilities easily available for parents to check before enrolling their children.
Personal injury Eddie Farah has seen far too many tragedies that have unfolded in Florida child-care settings where children have been the victims of ill-trained workers and unsafe conditions. If your child has been harmed due to negligence in a child-care setting, contact the law firm of Farah & Farah. We can review your case and explain your legal options.
