Helping Hands Child care center

Dear Revdex.com Representative,I am writing in response to a claim that was made against my business on 05/11/2017 by a former customer of mine whose child attended my childcare center. Several different things were mentioned in this complaint, which I feel have been extremely over...

exaggerated, misperceived and even at times a complete falsification of the truth. As a childcare provider, when I am accused of neglecting my children, which is what this complaint implies, I take this matter very seriously. It is a very bold statement which should not be made lightly and most certainly needs to be backed up with hard evidence, not speculation. From my understanding of this complaint, that is exactly the message trying to be portrayed. All of the statements provided in the paragraphs to follow come from FACTS, as well as experience as a tenured professional in the childcare industry for over 20 years. I am very well aware of the rules for operating a childcare center in the state of Maine and my staff as well as myself, are very well trained and experienced in the field as well. Regarding the alleged scrapes/bruises on the child, I saw no evidence of this through visual inspection of the child, nor did the parents speak with me about this. As far as the child coming home in different outfits constantly, this is common when you are dealing with a child of that age, as they like to explore different things and aren’t always the cleanest when they eat. I know this speaking from experience as both a mother of three and tenured professional in this industry. I will say that occasionally she was in different outfits but not frequently, kids will be kids, which is why in our handbook we require all parents to send their children in with extra sets of clothing, just in case. In response to their child not eating much for a week with no explanation, I will say that I cannot and will not force a child to eat ever, only encourage and be patient. Perhaps the parents should have provided different foods for her to try if this was such a pressing issue and I would have been more than happy to work with them. However, again speaking from experience, it is not uncommon for children to have changes in their eating behaviors for a variety of different reasons. Generally speaking they are short lived. In another part of the complaint, the claimant states that the owners “seemed” aggravated, annoyed, and surprised by the claimant’s wife’s unannounced visit, which is complete speculation. Running a childcare requires careful planning and structure, so when parents arrive unannounced it can throw things off, including both staff and children, which is why we prefer the parents schedule these times in. We absolutely encourage parents to come visit their children, but as most childcare centers operate, these times are scheduled in advance, unless of course it is an emergency situation. Perhaps the claimant’s wife speculation was we were just thrown off, as unannounced visits can be very disrupting. It was not our intention to give this impression in any way and it is more likely that we were surprised then anything else. As far as their child being in a closed off room, the door was open as it always is, unless a teacher is present in the room and I was not far away from them at all. The reason I left ironically, was to open the door for the unannounced claimant’s wife to come in. Even so, the other owner was still present to keep an eye on them. However, this further proves the importance of scheduling visits to come in, which is a prime example of how it can be disrupting. As far as the children allegedly being yelled at and unsupervised, I can assure you we had the appropriate child to teacher ratio per the State Of Maine’s regulations and we do not condone that sort of behavior. Perhaps the claimant’s wife perceived me speaking in a slightly firm tone, which from time to time is needed to get the children’s attention, as me “yelling” at them. About the video, per the State of Maines licensing rules we are allowed to show an educational video for a 30 minute period per day, so obviously when the claimants wife arrived unannounced, that is what we were doing. From reading this complaint, it appears as though the majority of this observation happened over the course of one short visit, when the claimant’s wife stopped in unannounced, with the exception of a few statements, which is hardly enough time to make a judgment on the environment provided by my childcare center. The word “seems” appears multiple times in different variations of the word, which is a perspective or point of view, thus is speculation not fact. All this being said, the claimant states they did not “feel” like this was a “safe environment” for their child which is why they abruptly left our childcare center without any notice. My question is if they felt this way, why did they not approach me or one of the other childcare workers? If they really felt the environment was so unsafe, then why did they continue to bring her here time and time again? If there were some supposed alleged “red flags” during the last month of care, why were these never brought to my attention? It just doesn’t make any sense to me, as our interactions with the claimant and claimant’s wife were always pleasant, so this is actually coming as a shock to us. We do apologize that the claimants and claimants wife feel this way and are not mad about this accusation, just disappointed, as we provided their child with adequate care, thus the reason they kept bringing her back. At no point in this complaint did the claimant state they had spoken with me or one of my staff members about this, not even once. If any attempts were made to convey their feelings then possibly we could have worked together to clear up any confusion, however we were never given that chance. About the desired settlement, I’m not sure what the intentions are by the claimant and his wife, as the purchase date is 02/22/17. It states that we did not provide the services advertised for what they paid for. It is very clear from the above mentioned statements that this is incorrect. We are willing however to absolve the claimant and claimant’s wife of the contractual obligation they broke, which requires them to pay us in full for two weeks, as they did not give us the appropriate notice. We feel that given the situation, this is more than fair. In return, we request that this entire complaint be stricken from the record as the majority of it is pure speculation and circumstantial evidence.