Sherburne County Health & Human Services (HHS) will be increasing its visits to licensed family childcare facilities.

 

The decision was made after the number of cases dropped over the past few years. That allows child care workers to spend more time monitoring facilities.

 

In 2009, HHS had a full time childcare licenser who left the department. It was decided not to fill the position as a cost-saving measure.

 

At that point, Heather Knutsen, the current licensing worker in childcare, had half of her caseload in childcare and half in adult foster care.

 

“So we moved all the childcare to Heather and moved all the adult foster care to another worker,” HHS Child Welfare Supervisor Jodi Heurung told the county board last week. “At that point she had a very large caseload of 291 cases.” 

 

In order to make that caseload feasible, the department looked at what the county was mandated to do and whether there was anything that could be cut back. They discovered that state statute requires child care visits once every two years. At the time, the county was doing yearly visits.

 

“In 2009, we made the decision to cut back and only do two-year visits in our family childcare licensing homes,” said Heurung. “It has been that way until now.”

 

But over the past few years there has been a lot of additional monitoring of childcare facilities. There have been changes to infant sleep space and the amount of training providers, helpers and substitutes need. 

 

“There is also additional monitoring for childcare assistance programs for licensors as well as a crib replacement due to safety issues in 2012 that licensors had to monitor,” said Heurung. “So a lot has been added.”

 

Since all the new regulations went into effect, the county has seen a significant decrease in the number of caselaods. 

 

“We’ve lost 55 providers since 2009. We believe a lot of it is due to the increased requirements that providers have,” said Heurung. “They have to take a lot more cautions. It also increased liability for providers. Our assumption is, a lot of providers were afraid. A lot of them thought the risk was too great.”

 

Commissioner Felix Schmiesing asked whether some former providers might have decided to move “off the grid” and do unlicensed childcare.

 

“I don’t have those numbers but we get a fair number of reports that somebody may be doing unlicensed care,” said Heurung. “We try to monitor that the best we can and if there’s information to indicate that is happening, we work with our county attorney to address that. We reach out to those people and let them know it’s illegal and we encourage them to begin the licensing process to get them in compliance.” 

 

Heurung said even with fewer caseloads, there hasn’t been a decrease in the number of licensing complaints. She said the top complaint is lack of quality supervision.

 

“With certain age groups, providers have to be within sight and sound of kids at all times,” she said. “Providers have to have a really good solid plan of how they’re going to operate a day care so they’re insuring proper supervision of the children they’re caring for.

 

Because of the lower number of caseloads and issues with supervision, Knutsen volunteered to begin yearly visits again.

 

“We’d like to make our best attempt to do yearly visits as time permits,” said Heurung. “That will make us feel we’re doing better monitoring of these homes.”

 

Commissioner Rachel Leonard asked if there would be a problem if the county only selected some providers to visit. It would look like certain providers were being singled out.

 

“That’ll be a challenge. There are providers who want us out there and really miss those off-year visits because good conversations happen during those visits,” said Heurung. “The licensor can support them and clarity any questions they may have.”

 

She said HHS has already contacted providers to let them know the county intends to start yearly visits again.

 

“We’ve asked if they want a visit, let us know and we’ll make those a priority,” she said.