A Big Step for Safer Child Care

Parents who leave their children in state-licensed day care centers or family day care homes have a right to expect those care givers to know how to save a youngster’s life.

State law does not require lifesaving instruction for licensed child care providers. A license means only that the center or home is clean and safe and that the provider has no criminal record.

A license should mean more. It should mean that the care giver knows how to perform pediatric CPR, pediatric first aid and certain preventive health procedures. Such training possibly could have helped 18-month-old Ariel Nicole Moon, who drowned after falling into a swimming pool at a licensed family day care home last year. The child’s baby-sitter held a state license but did not know CPR and was too distraught when she called 911 to follow first-aid instructions from dispatchers. Precious minutes were lost before paramedics reached the comatose toddler, who later died.

Assemblywoman Deirdre Alpert (D-Del Mar) has sponsored a bill that would require at least one teacher or the director of a licensed child care center and each licensed family day care home provider to have a minimum of 15 hours of instruction in lifesaving, first aid, hygiene and nutrition. It also would require that a trained staff person be available at all times that children are present.

AB 962 has passed the Legislature and is now on Gov. Pete Wilson’s desk. “This bill is just good common sense,” says Assemblywoman Alpert. We agree and urge the governor to sign it.