What are the Rules About Reporting Suspected Child Abuse?

If something happens to your child at a day care.. do you trust the provider to tell you about it? Would they report it to the proper authorities? Tonight Ashley Rodrigue investigates what the law requires of those who care for children.

"By Texas law, they are required to report suspected child abuse or neglect within 48 hours."

Jennifer Bennet works for the state as a child care licensing supervisor. She says day care employees or anyone for that matter who notices possible signs of child abuse or neglect must report that information to authorities or face consequences themselves.

She said, "Even if there's an incident at the day care that may not be abuse or neglect, but there's still risk to a child there, they're also required to report that to our department as well."

Or the report can be made to local law enforcement. If a day care 'doesn't' report the suspected abuse within 48 hours, The Department of Family and Protective services says the business could be cited and possibly face probation.

And while the day care must tell you about any allegation, risk or harm involving your own child .. the law does not require the provider to inform other parents whose children attend the same facility.

"So there's no state requirement that a day care inform all of the other parents?" "Right, there is not a state requirement but again some day care facilities have their own ways of handling things."

So to stay up-to-date on what's going on at your child's day care... the DFPS has set up this web site... where you can learn about the state's minimum standards for day cares.

"The qualifications for care givers, sanitizing things, keeping children safe, supervising children properly, just the whole gammit," Bennet said.

You'll also be able to see the results of any inspection or investigation involving that day care.

"It's really good to know what standards they are required to meet because a lot of parents don't understand and don't know what the day care is responsible for complying with," said Bennet, "If you start with that and you know what to look for, then you can go into this day care and observe and see 'are they doing things the way they're supposed to be doing 'em.' "

To search for details on your child's day care... visit www.txchildcaresearch.org. To report any suspicious behavior at your child's day care... you can call 1-800-252-5400 at any time.