A Texas family sued a childcare center, Arka Risinger Educators LLC, and alleged negligence, gross negligence, negligent hiring, failure to train, and negligent supervision.

The lawsuit stems from an incident in April when a mom picked up her four-year-old son from the facility. The child was allegedly crying uncontrollably and staff explanations about what occurred did not make sense.

The mother insisted on viewing surveillance footage at the facility and saw a video of a teacher grabbing, shaking, and dragging her son while encouraging another child to hit and kick him. Another teacher was in the room, but allegedly failed to intervene.

The footage showed a teacher speaking to someone by the classroom door with her back turned to the children. Another child struck the victim while the teacher was not looking. The children briefly fought but then stopped.

Minutes later, another teacher, who is the mother of the other child involved in the brief fight, entered the room. That child pushed the victim in the chest and when the victim raised his hands in defense, the teacher allegedly grabbed his arm and shook him before shoving him away.

The teacher then pulled the children toward each other, encouraging her child to hit and kick the victim, who was held by the wrist by the teacher while struggling to escape the situation. Eventually, the teacher allegedly pulled one of his legs out from under him which caused him to fall on the hardwood floor.

While all this was occurring, the other teacher in the room allegedly watched but failed to step in to stop the behavior.

The victim suffered bruises, scratches, and post-traumatic headaches after the incident. His parents allege that he became very anxious, afraid of being left alone, and is very distressed by any loud noises.

According to the parent's lawsuit, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission's Child Care Regulation Division had investigated the childcare center and found four violations related to the incident, including improper discipline, prohibited punishments, yelling, and failure to intervene.

The agency also allegedly revealed that this teacher had previously handled children aggressively and had a history of yelling which had been addressed by the facility.

Source: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/article/fort-worth-daycare-sued-alleged-child-fight-22433540.php

Commentary

In the above case, a teacher was in the room and allegedly witnessed abusive acts of another teacher, but failed to intervene. The source does not provide a reason why the two children were fighting or why the teacher failed to intervene to stop the abuse. One possible reason is because one of the children involved was the son of the teacher. Her son was physically abusing the other child.

While the teacher's actions of allegedly physically abusing a child in her care and encouraging fighting is a cause for liability, the addition of an adult bystander who failed to intervene increases the emotional harm to the victim and the exposure to the organization.

The fact is that had the other teacher intervened and separated all parties, the abuse could have been prevented or lessened. By watching the interaction and doing nothing, the bystander allowed the harm to the child to continue, which suggests a cover-up because no report was made. This implies institutionalized acceptance of the conduct.

Child safe organizations must train all staff members regarding their duty to intervene when they see child abuse or neglect by another staff member.

Each state has mandatory reporter laws requiring certain classes of individuals to report any known or suspected child abuse. In most states, teachers and childcare workers are specifically listed as mandatory reporters. Mandatory reporters must report any type of child abuse they have knowledge of or reasonable suspicion of, which includes abuse by other staff.

Child safe organizations should have policies and training on the importance of staff intervention when a child is being harmed. Intervention does not necessarily include physical intervention, especially if physical intervention would not be safe or possible, but may include interventions such as alerting law enforcement, security staff, or senior leadership.

The final takeaway is child safe environments depend on training bystanders, including staff, on how respond to abusive conduct. Child safe organizations should promote bystander response training to ensure all staff understand their obligations.