Department of Early Education and Care

This is a state audit of the Department of Early Education and Care, the agency that licenses and oversees child care programs in Massachusetts.

“The Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) is the lead agency of the Commonwealth for administering and providing early education and care programs and services to children and is responsible for the licensure or approval of several different kinds of care, including: child care centers, school-aged child care programs, Family Child Care (FCC) homes, family foster care which is not supervised and approved by a placement agency, placement agencies, group care facilities and temporary shelter facilities.”

Auditors reviewed whether EEC was properly inspecting child care providers and making sure providers followed rules meant to protect children.

“The objectives of our audit were to review and evaluate certain administrative activities of EEC relative to its licensing and inspection of Large Group and School Age Child Care (Group child care) programs and Family Child Care (FCC) homes to determine whether EEC: (1) was conducting all of its required inspectional activities and had established adequate internal controls over such activities and (2) was ensuring that licensed child care providers were complying with EEC regulations, including requesting required background checks, implementing corrective measures to address in a timely manner any program deficiencies identified by EEC during its site inspections, and maintaining required staff and child records and submitting required reports to EEC.”

These rules matter because they are supposed to help keep children safe, healthy, and away from adults who may pose a risk.

“It is therefore essential that EEC maintain effective controls that not only serve to ensure that individuals who provide child care services within the Commonwealth do so in a safe and clean environment but also employ staff who pose no threat to the health and safety of the children in these programs.”

If you are a parent or caregiver, this audit points to safeguards you would expect: completed background checks, follow-up when violations are found, accurate child records, and safe water at child care sites.

“Children’s Record Checklists specify such information as emergency contacts, authorized pickup person(s), transportation plans, progress reports, lead screening results, and health care and immunization information that providers must maintain for each child.”

The auditor found that EEC generally had controls in place for the areas tested, but several important exceptions needed fixing.

“Based on our audit we have determined that, except as reported in the Audit Findings section of this report, for the period July 1, 2010 through September 30, 2011, EEC had adequate internal controls in place and was in compliance with applicable laws, rules, and regulations for the areas tested.”

The auditor recommended stronger monitoring, better documentation, timely follow-up, unannounced inspections where required, clearer forms, updated policies, and possible address checks against the sex offender registry.

“EEC should put in place proper monitoring controls and evaluation procedures to ensure that criminal background record checks are performed prior to and during an individual’s employment.”

CORI means a criminal background check; FCC means family child care in a home; a corrective action plan means the provider’s written plan to fix a violation found during an inspection.

“Group child care license applicants, employees, and volunteers who have access to children are to undergo criminal background checks during the initial hiring process and after every subsequent three years of employment.”