Reports of abuse and neglect in Kentucky childcare facilities are on the rise. John Cheves is a government accountability reporter for the Lexington Herald Leader. He has been working on a series of reports on this topic and found some troubling numbers.
In an interview with WEKU's Eastern Standard, Cheves said many of these facilities in the commonwealth are terribly understaffed.
“There were a couple of facilities I would find where there wasn't an adult present in the room. They had one daycare worker looking through a doorway into another classroom where the kids were kind of minding themselves. They had a surveillance video, an employee at the front desk was watching kids in a classroom by themselves, that's unacceptable.”
said over the past few years, the number of complaints about childcare centers is on the rise.
“Hotline complaints about childcare facilities to the state up 46% in the last three years, incidents of child abuse and neglect substantiated by the state, up 73% in the last three years.”
Cheves said in his reporting, he also found that serious injuries to children reported at licensed childcare facilities have gone up 64% in the last three years. He said Kentucky does not have enough childcare facilities, and those that are running, do not have enough employees.
Hear more with Lexington Herald Leader reporter John Cheves later this week on Eastern Standard on WEKU.
