Child-Care Centers Slow to Buy Video Scanning System

Everywhere you look, it seems to Jody Sigmund, there is frightening news about child-care centers. Sexual abuse. Beatings. Abductions. Drownings. And who knows how many other incidents that are never reported. Sigmund wanted some assurance before leaving his 1-year-old son in the hands of a child-care provider.

So Sigmund, a salesman for a West Los Angeles firm that installs video cameras to monitor banks and other businesses, designed a similar system for use in child-care centers. A camera would be mounted in each room, capturing everything from naps to mishaps. Parents would feel safer knowing that the workings of the center were documented, Sigmund reasoned, and child-care providers would gain some protection against liability lawsuits.

However, Sigmund has encountered one problem: Almost nobody wants the system.

“I even offered it for free on a one-month trial basis,” said Sigmund, adding that he has sent mailers to about 300 Los Angeles-area child-care centers. “They apparently feel it’s an infringement on their rights. But it’s the parents’ and the children’s rights we’re interested in.”

First Customer

After several months of pitching the system, which Sigmund calls the “Child School Safety Program,” he has found his first customer, a Whittier woman who runs a licensed child-care center out of her home.

A television set that shows four different pictures sits on top of a wall unit in Pam Couch’s living room, affording her black-and-white views of the front door, nap room, school room and playground.

“Everyone has really had a nice response to this,” said Couch, who has raised her weekly rates from $70 to $95 to help pay for the $5,600 system. The “parents definitely think it’s worth it. I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to do this.”

Couch walked to the wall unit and removed a silk plant draped over an industrial videocassette recorder that uses time-lapse tape so that a day’s happenings can be reviewed in about two hours. The VCR is locked so that only Couch can control its operation.

Close-Up Views

She then steps up to the 19-inch monitoring television, which shows no one at the front door, an empty playground, a group of preschoolers seated for an afternoon snack and a row of cribs holding sleeping infants. With the touch of a button, Couch demonstrates how any of the four smaller screens can be expanded to fill the entire screen for a close-up view.

“The only time we ever use this to watch the children is during nap time so we can see when they start to wake up,” Couch said.

Sallee Kracis, a supervisor for the state Department of Social Services, said the video monitoring system is permitted under state licensing regulations. Kracis said she has heard of using home intercoms to monitor children, but never a video system.

“It sounds like an interesting state-of-the-art way of looking at it,” said Kracis, who works in the department’s San Gabriel Valley office. “But in no way would it replace the actual need for care and supervision” by child-care workers.

Understand Disinterest

Ron Garner, director of the state-funded Child and Family Services, said he can understand why care providers are not interested in the system.

“There could be some misinterpretation because the camera angle might not reflect what actually happened” during an accident, said Garner, whose agency refers parents to licensed care providers and assists providers in becoming licensed. “I don’t think it would be effective.”

Cameras cannot substitute for trust between a parent and care provider, Garner said. “If you don’t have that trust level, then I think that cameras can be an avenue to lawsuits and all kinds of things,” he said.

However, Couch sees the cameras as a way of protecting herself from lawsuits should she ever be faced with allegations of neglect, as well as a means of reassuring nervous parents. Couch said she keeps the tapes for two weeks before reusing them.

“I think it makes them feel better about leaving their child here,” Couch said of the parents.

Great Idea

Bill Odenthal, whose 2-year-old son stays with Couch during the day, said the system is a great idea.

“If an accident should happen to him and they don’t know how it occurred, now we can go back and check,” Odenthal said. “I think it works well both ways--for parents and for her.”

Sigmund said he has encountered criticism from those who see his system as intrusive, as Big Brother fixing its unblinking eye on the innocent world of small children.

“I picture Big Brother being government watching the public,” Sigmund said. “That’s not how I see this at all. Banks put this in to protect their commodity. Parents should have that same option.”

Susan Shanks, whose 2 1/2-year-old daughter is cared for by Couch, said her child’s safety is more important than concerns about Big Brother.

“This is a service,” Shanks said. “If this is something that can help that service, more power to it.”