Watertown Y’s day care center at risk of losing license after state inspection

WATERTOWN, N.Y. (WWNY) - The Watertown Family YMCA Day Care Center is at risk of losing its license.

It started with a complaint about a child left without supervision at the day care center.

That led to a state inspection on April 20 that found a total of 6 violations, including cleaning and safety violations, and failure to notify a parent and the state after a serious incident.

“It’s considered a serious incident if a child is left unsupervised for any period of time. That is considered a serious incident and it should be. We have policies, we have the way things should be done so that that can never happen and those policies weren’t followed. It happened, and we have addressed it,” said Denise Young, Watertown Family YMCA CEO.

Young says the YMCA employees involved were fired.

“We can not have staff that do not take the appropriate action with a child,” she said.

The violations are as follows:

• Suitable precautions must be taken to eliminate all conditions in areas accessible to children which pose a safety or health hazard.
• Children cannot be left without competent supervision at any time. Competent supervision includes awareness of and responsibility for the ongoing activity of each child. It requires that all children be within a teacher’s range of vision and that the teacher be near enough to respond when redirection or intervention strategies are needed. Competent supervision must take into account the child’s age emotional, physical, and cognitive development.
• Child care center staff must personally make, or cause to be made, an immediate report to the Statewide Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment by telephone, followed by a written report within 48 hours, in the form and manner prescribed by the Office, to the child protective service of the social services district in the county in which the child resides.
• All rooms, equipment, surfaces, supplies and furnishings accessible to children must be cleaned and then sanitized or disinfected, using an EPA registered product, as needed to protect the health of children, and in a manner consistent with the program’s health care plan approved by the Office.
• Each child day care center must operate in compliance with all emergency health guidance promulgated by the Department of Health in the interest of public health during a designated public health emergency. Provided that, during a designated public health emergency, any relevant emergency directives from the executive chamber or from the Department of Health shall supersede regulations of the Office in the case of any conflict.
• The program must immediately notify the parent and Office upon learning of the following events involving a child which occurred while the child was in care at the program or was being transported by the program: serious incident.

The state says there are 76 kids enrolled at the Watertown Family YMCA - 14 infants, 20 toddlers, and 42 preschool-age children.

Young submitted a correction plan with the state and is confident it will be accepted.

The state wouldn’t comment Thursday.

These are not the center’s first violations. On record, they have had 11 other violations since June of 2019, which have since been corrected.

Meanwhile, the center remains open as it waits for the state to render a decision.

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