Mother: Why doesn't the state limit restraint of children in child care centers?
DENISON, Ia. — Reward the good behavior; give minimal attention to the bad.
That’s the plan Sarah Lundin, a mother of two boys, worked out with caregivers at Children’s Imagination Station in Denison to deal with the boys' sometimes challenging behavior.
One of the brothers was 10, the other 8. Both were diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder. The older boy had anxiety and PTSD. The youngest, ADHD. The behaviors, she said, began after both boys were traumatized in their earlier years.
But last year, a new day care director was hired and everything changed, according to Lundin, an OB-GYN surgeon.
In a civil lawsuit rare in Iowa, the mother alleges director Kim Larson and assistant director Amanda Musfeldt used physical restraint, assault and intimidation to control her children. She has accused them of negligence, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
A trial date for the case has yet to be set.
Lundin contacted Watchdog because she says she’s been trying to get state leaders to limit the use of restraint in private day care centers and require better training for center workers.
She’s written to legislators, several top officials in Iowa’s Department of Human Services, Iowa Area Education Agencies, the Harkin Institute and others.
Lundin says her 10-year-old could have been seriously injured after he was restrained twice last fall. Another parent, she says, told her her son was being mistreated, so she reviewed video at the day care.
At one point, Larson placed her whole body on Lundin's 10-year-old while he was lying on the floor, her Crawford County lawsuit alleges.
Iowa is one of only a handful of states that allows the use of seclusion and restraint in schools when the safety of others is not threatened.
Many districts, including Des Moines Public Schools, have used seclusion rooms — often padded, 6-by-6-foot wooden boxes — to restrain children, typically following violent outbursts.
But the use of restraint for troubled youth in residential homes and public schools has generated controversy in recent years and drawn attention from both the U.S. and Iowa departments of education.
In 2017, Iowa’s education department determined that the Iowa City school district violated state and federal law in its use of seclusion rooms. School officials there stopped using the rooms, focusing instead on other behavioral interventions.
Use of seclusion and restraint in Iowa homes for troubled youth, meanwhile, have led to federal lawsuits with big payouts by the state.
Iowa’s Department of Education initiated changes this year to state administrative code after several school districts were accused of excessive restraint. The changes require all school employees to be trained in the use of seclusion and restraint and banned prone, or facedown, restraint altogether.
The rules also require that parents be notified of the use of seclusion or restraint within 24 hours and that schools document each time seclusion or restraint is used.
The use of any restraint in a child care setting is widely discouraged by child development experts. But it is not prohibited in state law or rules for licensed centers, according to lawyers at the Iowa American Civil Liberties Union.
State code does require licensed child care centers to have written policies on the discipline of children, which provides for positive guidance to redirect kids. Corporal punishment, including spanking, shaking or slapping, is prohibited, as is locking children in rooms.
Staff members who use restraints as part of a treatment plan for a child with a disability are required to have training.
It’s unclear whether Larson and Musfeldt had that training, however. Watchdog stopped at Children's Imagination Station in Denison last week and left a message for Larson. She did not return the message.
Lundin says her son's treatment at the center led his behavior to decline, and he was placed in Four Oaks, a residential treatment center in Mason City.
Matt Highland, a spokesperson for the Department of Human Services, did not return two requests for comment.
In a February letter to Lundin, however, DHS Director Jerry Foxhoven said the agency has been working to expand training to all settings where children are in the state.
DHS is working on a pilot project that would expand training to child care centers through Child Care Resource and Referral, a contractor that provides training for child care employees, he said.