The Follow Up

Well I wish I could say today went well but I was left feeling so frustrated. You see having your own business and raising a child comes at a price. Had I had the choice I would have pulled Miss E out of daycare today but I can't just close the shop or I loose customers and I'm still trying to build my business. My husband works in health care and he was flat out all day, but managed to pick her up a bit earlier than usual.

At least I can be happy that her two usual carers were back today and she seemed to be happy when we picked up and there were no further scratches or incidents.

What I was so frustrated at was the Director of the centre calling me to explain what happened. She said she had conflicting stories from the casuals and permanent staff that were on yesterday, that it appears there were two separate incidents resulting in the injuries and that the casual looking after Miss E couldn't write well enough to fill out an incident report form on her own so she was waiting to fill it out with one of the permanent staff.

Infuriating! I lost it. And I have to say I think I did well to not swear once.

I told her that the center was her responsibility and the quality of care given at the centre fell directly on her shoulders. It was her job to ensure policies and procedures are being followed, to hire qualified staff and make sure carer to child ratios are adhered to. I told her that after five separate incidents where procedures weren't followed, ratio's weren't adhered to and my child was injured in all of these, she was clearly not doing her job properly. She muttered something about continuing her investigation and hung up.

I rang DOCS and waited on hold for 45 minutes before hanging up because I had customers. No wonder so many child abuse cases don't get reported.

I called the Head Office of the center in Sydney and was put on hold before getting a recorded message asking me to leave my name, number and center I was calling about and they would call me back.

I called my hubby who said he would go get her and see if he can take her to work for a while tomorrow and do some work from home so she didn't have to go back.

Tomorrow I go to Sydney for my first ever kids fashion trade show. I've been looking forward to it since halfway through last year. I'm so frustrated with Miss E's childcare that instead of thinking about all the things I need to do tomorrow I became consumed with the childcare issue.

How hubby makes sure our baby is being well looked after........

This is what I know. Tomorrow she'll be fine because she'll either be with her Daddy or with her usual carer and the Director is probably shitting (oops) her pants by now so they won't want to make another error like Wednesday. Next week she does orientation at her new daycare and I hope she'll love it there.

Tomorrow I'm off to Sydney and I've booked an apartment in the city with a spa and I intend to make good use of the relaxation and good nights sleep I'll get.

Tonight I better get my butt in bed..........

A Very Angry Mum!

Tonight I'm seething! I picked up Miss E from childcare today and her face was grazed, small cut above her right eye, bruising and both knees grazed. Now I know accidents happen, toddlers run and fall, but no one can actually tell me what happened ad there was no incident report for me to sign. To top it off it's clearly a head injury and regardless of how minor it is, legally they are required to call me and report it.

About two months after we put Miss E into this childcare center I began to think it wasn't the best place. I don't know why, maybe it was other Mums telling me of the problems they were having, maybe it was the center director running around like she had ADD and making all her employees nervous wrecks, maybe it was because aftyer 2 months Miss E still cried and clung to me every time i tried to drop and run.

Childcare spaces are limited in my town so I put her on a waiting list for one a block from the shop and on meeting with the director and doing a tour, one I felt immediately comfortable with.

We have had several incidents in the past 3 months with our current provider. Actually I can count them, five to be exact. In each occurrence the she had scratches, cuts, bruising or head injuries severe enough to contact me however the call wasn't made. In each case the incident report couldn't be provided at the time because the casual who was supervising the children had gone home and didn't fill it out. Each time I could seriously question the amount of supervision given because of things like Miss E was eating strawberries from the garden and no one realised till they saw the white shirt she was wearing had red juice down the front. Come on!

So this is my baby after I picked her up today. She was very grumpy and the bottle was the only way to keep her settled. It's a pretty bad photo and you can't see the grazing that well. It's not even the severity of the injury, it's the balls they have in blatantly breaking policy and the law!

Anyway, I'm happy to say we've been accepted to the new childcare center and she starts next Friday. Tomorrow morning I am definitely going to make a huge complaint to the director, and then I'm making a complaint to the Departments of Community Services. Five times in three months is way too much.

Have you ever experienced anything like this and what did you do about it?