Child Care Negligence

What is the name of your state? California

I am from California and work for a not for profit promoting the health of children. At this institution, we provide childcare for kids while their parents attend workshops. At a few of these workshops, we were understaffed licensed child care providers. We've had situations where we have had 35-40 kids late at night, at schools near gang territory, with only one licensed child care provider and two unlicensed staff. That night, a lot of potentially dangerous occurences regarding children's safety occurred, and I felt very uncomfortable about it including a medical emergency resulting from an accident, and two cases of children being lost on school grounds because we were not ably staffed to man the doors. As staff, we were told that we were merely Child Supervision "Supervisors" and not technical "providers."

When confronted with the issue, management told my boss that we, as staff, made up for the unlicensed supervisors at the site. I feel that this is not true because 1) we are not licensed, 2) never signed up for this type of a duty, 3) feel like this is compromising our security and the security of the children.

I was just curious as to 1) the liability that we as staff have if something were to happen to the child, 2) if it is even legal for us to be watching these kids as providers, 3) if this institution is legally at liberty to put staff as we are in this compromising position and just shrug it off.

This situation has not just happened once. We will be taking this situation to management this week, and I just wanted to do some research before we presented it more.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

It is very difficult to answer hypothetical questions like that. Are you an "employee" there? To generally answer your questions (1) and (2):

1. the liability that we as staff have if something were to happen to the child - in CA everyone can be sued for their own torts (wrongful conduct), and this includes negligent supervision of children. As to liability for dangerous conditions on premises, this is usually triggered by notice (i.e. prior similar occurrences of these types of problems, like gang activity). Chances are though that employees would be named as nominal defendants (only to pressure them to testify against the employer). So, bring up these problems at the meeting, and you will probably give notice about the problems, sufficient to make the employer do somethig (not to mention make the witness list of some lawyer).

3. if this institution is legally at liberty to put staff as we are in this compromising position and just shrug it off - employees have rights, and if you feel that you or the children are in danger, you should complain (and loudly). An employee may not be discharged after complaining to employer about working conditions which employee reasonably believed to be unsafe.

I cant comment on #2, since I don't fully understand what this has to do with (employer policy?)

Hope this helps.
Dimitry