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Mother: Day-Care Owner Forgot Infant, Left For Hours
POSTED: 4:08 pm EST March 7, 2007
UPDATED: 5:02 am EST March 8, 2007
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GREENVILLE, S.C. -- The mother of a 3-month-old baby said when she went to pick up her son at the home of her day-care provider, she found the baby alone and the baby sitter gone.
Tikeeta Wallace said she first went to pick up her son Camern at Mom's Daycare at 503 Old Augusta Road in Greenville at about 4:40 p.m. Tuesday, which she said is earlier than normal.
Wallace said that since no one was there, she thought the child-care provider had taken the baby somewhere with her, so
Wallace left to bring some things back to her home nearby.
Wallace said that when she returned to the day-care provider's home about an hour later and repeatedly knocked on the door, no one answered. Then
Wallace said that she thought she heard a baby crying, so she went to a back door and found it unlocked. Inside, she said she found her son alone in the house with a thick blanket pulled up over his head.
Wallace said, "I was hurt. I was disappointed. I could say a lot of things, but there's nothing to prepare you for the way you feel in a situation. Nothing to prepare you for that."
Wallace said that she found Mom's Daycare through a referral service.
Wallace said, "She was very nice and friendly and, you know, I thought it was a nice place for my son. It looked just like grandma's place ... I bragged on how good this woman was with my son. It really just took me back -- completely knocked me off my feet. I couldn't believe it."
Wallace said that until she finds another day-care provider, a friend will look after her son.
"When I left my son with her, I expected her to care for my son as if he were her own," Wallace said.
The day-care provider declined to comment on the incident. She is licensed to care for up to six children in her home.
Wallace says she wants to see Mon's Daycare shut down.
Resources For Parents
Choosing a day care provider can be challenging for parents because not all home-based centers function at the level that parents hope for.
Linda Brees, Safe Kids Upstate director, said, "If they're wanting to open up a child care center in their home, there are some guidelines that they need to follow in order to be a licensed center, but unfortunately, there are not very many educational standards that have to be met."
Laurie Rovin, director of Success By Six, the branch of the United Way that oversees childcare issues, said that South Carolina lags behind when it comes to standards set for childcare providers.
Rovin said in the Upstate, the current effort to improve standards is focused more on center-based day care facilities. Because of that, Rovin said that family-based or home-based day care centers are somewhat overlooked, even though those, too, have standards to meet.
For day care referrals in the 14-county area, parents can call United Way Child Care Resource and Referral at 467-4800.