9.1 Parental Complaint Process

Lead Agencies must maintain a record of substantiated parental complaints against child care providers and make information regarding such complaints available to the public on request. Lead Agencies must also provide a detailed description of the hotline or similar reporting process for parents to submit complaints about child care providers; the process for substantiating complaints; the manner in which the Lead Agency maintains a record of substantiated parental complaints; and ways that the Lead Agency makes information on such parental complaints available to the public on request. Lead Agencies are not required to limit the complaint process to parents. 9.1.1 Parental complaint process a. Describe the Lead Agency’s hotline or similar reporting process through which parents can submit complaints about child care providers, including a link if it is a Web-based process: On the Lead Agency’s webpage (https://www.hhs.nd.gov/cfs/early-childhood-services) there is a link in the Information for Families section to submit complaints. The link (https://www.hhs.nd.gov/cfs/early-childhood-services/contact) directs the user to a list of the Licensing Specialist(s) assigned to each county, which includes their contact information. b. Describe how the parental complaint process ensures broad access to services for families that speak languages other than English: The State of North Dakota provides automatic translation for nd.gov websites, courtesy of Google Translate. c. Describe how the parental complaint process ensures broad access to services for persons with disabilities: The Lead Agency’s website complies with all priority 1 and 2 guidelines of the W3 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, is Section 508 approved, complying with all guidelines of the U.S. Federal Government Section 508 Guidelines, and validates as XHTML 1.0 Strict. Free Relay North Dakota services are also available and enable people who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind or those with a speech disability to place and receive phone calls. Communications Assistants are specially trained to facilitate the calls. d. For complaints about providers, including CCDF providers and non-CCDF providers, does the Lead Agency have a process and timeline for screening, substantiating, and responding to complaints, including information about whether the process includes monitoring? [x] Yes. If yes, describe: Complaints regarding providers are documented and reviewed as soon as possible to determine if the complaint is substantiated. All complaints are investigated as soon as possible by a licensing specialist, who completes an unannounced review of the licensed or regulated program. If a violation is found, a Correction Order is issued. A reinspection of the provider is conducted once the provider provides information of compliance or at the end of the period allowed for the correction. Further monitoring of the provider is conducted as appropriate. The process is the same for CCDF and non-CCDF providers and licensed and license-exempt providers. [ ] No. e. For substantiated parental complaints, who maintains the record for CCDF and non-CCDF providers? Substantiated complaints for providers are documented in the Child Care Licensing System. A record of the substantiated compliant is maintained in the provider record for both CCDF and non-CCDF providers. f. Describe how information about substantiated parental complaints is made available to the public; this information can include the consumer education website discussed in subsection 9.2: Correction Orders that are issued as a result of a monitoring visit due to a substantiated complaint are posted publicly, along with the inspection report, on the consumer education website within each program’s profile. Direct link to public search tool: https://stage.worklifesystems.com/parent/40.