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: Parents and others may submit a complaint about a child care provider online by completing the complaint intake form. Go to https://childcarelicensing.utah.gov, click on the Information for Public tab, then click on How to File a Complaint. A complaint may be made by calling or emailing Child Care Licensing or by submitting a complaint online with the electronic complaint form. A tutorial video with instructions is available on the webpage. b. Describe how the parental complaint process ensures broad access to services for families that speak languages other than English: The Child Care Licensing website is able to be translated into several other languages through a translate feature on the website. The Accessibility section also includes instructions on how to translate the page into more languages (https://www.utah.gov/support/translate.html) c. Describe how the parental complaint process ensures broad access to services for persons with disabilities: Parents can file a complaint online, by phone or email. The Child Care Licensing website includes an accessibility statement and many features to make it more accessible. (https://www.utah.gov/support/accessibility.html). 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: The Lead Agency contracts with Child Care Licensing (CCL) for its process of screening, substantiating and responding to complaints regarding CCDF providers. Every complaint received is logged into the CCL database, whether or not the allegations address rule violations. Complaints logged into the database then go to the complaint investigator and their supervisor to be screened. Both the complaint investigator and the supervisor meet weekly to screen every complaint. They read the complaints and determine if they are to be investigated. If complaints are to be investigated, they decide what priority the investigation should have (depending on the severity of the allegations it can be immediate, within one working day, or within 5, 10, or 30 working days). CCL staff is instructed to alert the complaint investigator and their supervisor right away if they receive a complaint that may pose immediate risk to the children, so that complaint is not pending to be screened but addressed as soon as possible. During the screening process, they also determine the type of investigation, the questions to be asked, if monitoring is required, and other needed instructions for the complaint investigator to proceed. All of these screening details are part of the database and are recorded in the system. According to Utah Code §26-39-501, CCL cannot investigate anonymous complaints and complaints with allegations that occurred more than six weeks in the past. If during the screening, the screeners determine that monitoring is required, the complaint investigator is instructed to conduct either an announced or an unannounced inspection. The vast majority of the complaint investigation inspections are done unannounced. CCL determines whether a complaint is substantiated after an investigation of a complaint is completed. This investigation includes monitoring of the program. Parents are advised to immediately report complaints to CCL or file a police report. A complaint is substantiated when CCL is able to corroborate an alleged violation of state law or department rule. Depending on the outcome of the investigation, a provider may be placed on a conditional license, which requires more frequent monitoring and oversight. Follow-up visits to verify compliance are also required when rule violations are substantiated. The complaint investigator and their supervisor meet after the investigation is completed to determine if more steps need to be completed or if the investigation can be finalized. All complaints are treated the same whether or not the provider receives CCDF funding or the provider is licensed or exempt. [ ] No. e. For substantiated parental complaints, who maintains the record for CCDF and non-CCDF providers? Every complaint received is logged into the CCL database, whether or not the allegations address rule violations. Complaints logged into the database are not deleted, whether or not they are substantiated. In that way, complaints are archived indefinitely in electronic format. Deleting complaints is a restricted feature in the CCL database. Only administrators of the system can delete complaints. Every complaint entered into the CCL database is maintained in the individual provider’s record as part of their licensing history. Only substantiated complaints are part of the provider’s public record. Substantiated complaints show in the provider’s public record automatically from the CCL database. No other complaints are shared with the public. These records are maintained in the CCL database indefinitely as mandated by the Utah archives system. 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: The CCL Program maintains a list of substantiated complaints in its database for all provider types. Substantiated complaints are posted to the public automatically by the CCL database for 36 months. Substantiated complaints are also available to the public upon request by phone or in writing for as long as the facility exists. In addition, parents can view public information regarding licensed providers online through https://careaboutchildcare.utah.gov. The Care About Childcare website allows for a search of child care providers in the state. The provider profiles include a direct link to CCL, which includes whether there has been a substantiated parental complaint for a particular provider.