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Today's Poll!Families campaign to prosecute child care provider
Reports show history of violations with unlicensed day care
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Allegations of child abuse and other violations against a local home day care provider have led to investigations since 2007, but no charges.
The Cole County prosecutor says he’s still considering charges in one case, but frustrated parents of children who were allegedly injured under Dorothy Thomas Carel’s care are growing more vocal. They’ve launched an aggressive social media campaign to push for prosecution.
Parents of two children who were injured at Carel’s unlicensed day care say she is operating the business illegally by having more than four unrelated children in her care.
Both parents and state Department of Health and Senior Services reports also allege Carel has left children unattended and has placed them in unsafe situations.
Carel refused requests to comment for this story.
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To view a police report filed in one of the cases against day care provider Dorothy Carel, as well as multiple complaints filed by the Missouri Division of Health and Senior Services, see www.newstribune.com/daycare.
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Comments
Festus_Hagen 9 months, 4 weeks ago
Well yea she declined an interview. She almost killed 2 babies because she's careless and violent . She doesn't want to tell that, and that's all she can say because her lies are all tangled up and she can't keep them straight. We are lucky we aren't looking at a death here.
kentheco 9 months, 3 weeks ago
I posted this comment to the article "newstribune.com/daycare" where you can view a copy of the report filed by the state. You have to add 3 "w"s and a period access the article but you can't use all three "w"s in the comment. Duh! I'm referring to your own article and yet can't give the url.
I have to wonder why parents would continue to take their children there after they became aware of the problems. I can also see a problem with the report made by Randy Eichholz from a visit he made in June 2012. Did he go there on the 25th or 26th of June, just what a defense attorney will want to know. It is not my place to determine guilt but when it comes to investigations and evidence, accuracy is a must and if previous reports had questionable dates/facts, I can see why the prosecutor has not already had her in court.
Pixie 9 months, 3 weeks ago
After reviewing the documents, I don't see any date conflicts. There was a written complaint made that the state health department received on June 25th. Randy Eichholz then began the investigation into the complaint by visiting on June 26th and continued the investigation with additional activities on June 27th. I feel that the state health department should be commended for acting so quickly once the complaint was made. For all the complaining about state workers, this documentation proves just how quickly and caringly the state workers act to protect all of us. As a society we should be demanding prosecution for the illegal daycare operation alone...and I agree with you that I too wonder why parents continue to take their children to this person. I also wonder if the parents were even aware of some of the history of this person. It appears that there was a high turnover of clients. Did the new parents have any access to the history of this illegal operation? Or have we allowed our laws to protect the criminals rights instead of the safety of the innocents?
Prosecute_Carel 9 months, 3 weeks ago
I am glad that you asked about access to the history. The history is available through the Section for Childcare Regulation, if you know to look there. A check of casenet will not show anything unless you know to misspell her name, as they have, Dorotht Carel. That will show the pending civil litigation for the 1st injured baby. However, because the prosecutor has never taken any action, despite her repeated violations, there are no criminal charges to find.
Prosecute_Carel 9 months, 3 weeks ago
Parents often weren't notified of the problems because Carel did not disclose to investigators the accurate number and names of children she was caring for. There are no problems with the reports. The report was made on June 25th and Mr. Eicholz visited on June 26th. There are no questionable dates/facts.
online_editor 9 months, 3 weeks ago
Just to clarify regarding kentheco's comment: The live link in the article did include the 3 W's, so it's logical that a person would try to post that in a comment and have trouble, but just a tip to help you out in the future, you don't need to add the 3 W's in the web address for it to work. I suppose there may be some exceptions, but that's true of most website addresses these days. Similarly, h t t p won't post here either, but there's no real need to use it to convey an address either. Hope that helps in the future. --Rick Brown, online editor, News Tribune
gettingthere 9 months, 3 weeks ago
From the point of view of a husband whose wife runs a non-licensed day-care, people like Ms. Carel scare me. All my wife has to go on is her reputation, which is well earned and deserved. This industry is just like any other, some businesses make poor decisions that affect the rest of the industry. With some parents pushing for more regulation, warranted or not, some elite non-licensed providers will get pushed out because of regulation. I applaud these parents for sticking up for their kids, and other peoples kids too, but lets think about the end result here. The regulation aspect as it pertains to those providers who actually do their job. We have all worked for someone who punishes everyone because one person messed up. Please don't punish those of us who are doing our job, loving your kids as our own, with more regulation.
On a more personal note, we were licensed but dropped it because of the crazy regulations. We began to evaluate the standards, and found that we were being punished for providing intelligent, loving care for our clients.
Gabrielle 9 months, 3 weeks ago
please elaborate on your last paragraph - why you dropped the licensing part of the daycare business.
tonto_goldberg 9 months, 3 weeks ago
See katydid's comment below. katy makes it pretty clear.
katydid 9 months, 3 weeks ago
There are many good licensed providers dropping their license or quitting altogether due to the rew rules, lots of paperwork, and some of the ridiculous inspections. When a licensing inspector comes and has a dime to check the s-hook of the swing set, when providers are written up for spider webs on the outside of the home or the toys are wet outside from dew or rain then their could be a reason people are rethinking the licensing aspect of child care. Not one provider I know is going to let the kids get wet from the toys. We are capable of bringing towels with us and drying items off. Spiders and spider webs are a wonderful teaching tool for science and nature and we are lucky to have on on the outside of the window where children can watch.
I too am tired of licensed child cares getting punished because of an incident that happened. Can we say something positive about child care?
mia 9 months, 3 weeks ago
People refuse to believe that things like this go on. Thats why mothers keep on taking their kids to her. I had a sitter that was supposed the religion pilar of the community. She stuffed babies into closets and did other things so bad that she was arrested. In the end, as crazy as it sounds, they gave her a license so they could watch her. But mothers still kept on taking their kids to her.
Gabrielle 9 months, 3 weeks ago
about a third of the way through the article, I had to put the paper down for a while. Made me sick to my stomach.
Makes a person wonder why we have laws for this if this is how they are enforced.
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