50 signatures reached
To: The Commissioner of the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) and State Regulatory Authorities
Consistency, Privacy, and Fair Reporting in Family Child Care Licensing Inspections in Connecticut
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED FAMILY CHILD CARE PROVIDERS, are dedicated professionals committed to providing the highest quality of safe and nurturing care in our homes. We support the mission of licensing oversight. However, we are currently experiencing significant and damaging operational failures within the inspection process, particularly following the recent rezoning and staffing changes, which severely undermine our professionalism and retention. Long-established child care providers are deeply upset about the way the inspection process is working and are actively considering leaving the field because we feel the good we do is being completely overlooked by imperfections cited in our personal spaces.
WE PETITION THE OEC AND STATE AUTHORITIES TO IMMEDIATELY ADDRESS AND RECTIFY THE FOLLOWING SYSTEMIC ISSUES:
1. ENDING INCONSISTENCY AND ERODING TRUST
We are consistently penalized by new and reassigned inspectors for issues that were explicitly approved by previous OEC specialists. This contradictory compliance forces providers to waste time and resources chasing arbitrary rule changes, breeding deep distrust in the licensing agency’s expertise and fairness.
2. STOPPING THE INVASION OF PRIVATE FAMILY SPACES
The inspection process is invading our private, family-only areas that are not designated for child care, leading to irrelevant citations and violating our families' fundamental right to privacy.
Boundary Violation: Inspectors are overreaching, citing issues in family only private areas and scrutinizing private belongings, even though these areas pose no threat to the children in care.
Privacy Infringement: This intrusion violates the privacy of family members. We acknowledge the need for a brief visual safety check in private rooms to ensure no unauthorized children are present; however, this inspection must stop after opening the door and simply peeking in. There is absolutely no justification for examining private personal belongings, such as a family member's closet or drawers.
3. REFORMING DAMAGING AND BROAD VIOLATION REPORTS
The official violation reports use overly broad and alarming terminology that does not clarify when a citation relates only to a private family space versus the child care environment.
For example, an irrelevant citation about a private family member’s bedroom may be publicly listed as "Does Not Comply with Minimum Cleanliness Standards."
This generic language unjustly damages a provider’s professional reputation, raises red flags to current and prospective parents, and can jeopardize our ability to secure and maintain liability insurance when carriers check our public records.
OUR DEMANDS FOR ACTION
We, the Family Child Care Providers of Connecticut, demand the OEC implement the following changes to ensure a fair, consistent, and respectful regulatory environment:
Strict Boundaries and Respect for Privacy: Mandate that inspectors strictly adhere to inspecting only the areas legally designated for child care. For private family rooms, inspections must be limited to a brief visual check for unauthorized children, with no scrutiny of personal belongings or room condition.
Standardized Training and Accountability: Implement rigorous, uniform training for all specialists, especially new hires, and establish a clear internal mechanism to hold inspectors accountable for inconsistent rule interpretations.
Accurate, Specific Reporting: Revise the violation reporting format to clearly and explicitly differentiate between citations impacting the child care space and those that are purely administrative or based on family-only areas, thus preventing unwarranted reputational harm.
Supervisory Review of Contradictory Violations: Establish a formal supervisory overview process for any item that was previously approved by an OEC inspector but is now considered a violation. This process must allow providers to review and correct the disputed item before the violation is placed in the provider’s permanent public record.
WE PETITION THE OEC AND STATE AUTHORITIES TO IMMEDIATELY ADDRESS AND RECTIFY THE FOLLOWING SYSTEMIC ISSUES:
1. ENDING INCONSISTENCY AND ERODING TRUST
We are consistently penalized by new and reassigned inspectors for issues that were explicitly approved by previous OEC specialists. This contradictory compliance forces providers to waste time and resources chasing arbitrary rule changes, breeding deep distrust in the licensing agency’s expertise and fairness.
2. STOPPING THE INVASION OF PRIVATE FAMILY SPACES
The inspection process is invading our private, family-only areas that are not designated for child care, leading to irrelevant citations and violating our families' fundamental right to privacy.
Boundary Violation: Inspectors are overreaching, citing issues in family only private areas and scrutinizing private belongings, even though these areas pose no threat to the children in care.
Privacy Infringement: This intrusion violates the privacy of family members. We acknowledge the need for a brief visual safety check in private rooms to ensure no unauthorized children are present; however, this inspection must stop after opening the door and simply peeking in. There is absolutely no justification for examining private personal belongings, such as a family member's closet or drawers.
3. REFORMING DAMAGING AND BROAD VIOLATION REPORTS
The official violation reports use overly broad and alarming terminology that does not clarify when a citation relates only to a private family space versus the child care environment.
For example, an irrelevant citation about a private family member’s bedroom may be publicly listed as "Does Not Comply with Minimum Cleanliness Standards."
This generic language unjustly damages a provider’s professional reputation, raises red flags to current and prospective parents, and can jeopardize our ability to secure and maintain liability insurance when carriers check our public records.
OUR DEMANDS FOR ACTION
We, the Family Child Care Providers of Connecticut, demand the OEC implement the following changes to ensure a fair, consistent, and respectful regulatory environment:
Strict Boundaries and Respect for Privacy: Mandate that inspectors strictly adhere to inspecting only the areas legally designated for child care. For private family rooms, inspections must be limited to a brief visual check for unauthorized children, with no scrutiny of personal belongings or room condition.
Standardized Training and Accountability: Implement rigorous, uniform training for all specialists, especially new hires, and establish a clear internal mechanism to hold inspectors accountable for inconsistent rule interpretations.
Accurate, Specific Reporting: Revise the violation reporting format to clearly and explicitly differentiate between citations impacting the child care space and those that are purely administrative or based on family-only areas, thus preventing unwarranted reputational harm.
Supervisory Review of Contradictory Violations: Establish a formal supervisory overview process for any item that was previously approved by an OEC inspector but is now considered a violation. This process must allow providers to review and correct the disputed item before the violation is placed in the provider’s permanent public record.
Why is this important?
Why This Is Important To Us
Our decision to operate a child care business within our family home is a profound commitment to our community and to the welfare of young children. This arrangement allows us to provide a unique, home-based setting that benefits children's development. We commit our professional lives, our properties, and our own family's privacy to this work. When the licensing system focuses on citing issues in our private lives—and allows those irrelevant citations to damage our public professional reputation—it feels like a complete dismissal of the quality, warmth, and dedication we pour into the child care environment every day. We seek to be partners in quality, not antagonists caught in unpredictable and invasive bureaucratic cycles.