This month, deputy editor Stephanie McFeeters was joined by Maine Monitor summer reporting fellow Alexa Foust to talk about her investigation into safety violations at child care facilities in Maine, done in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity.
In the episode, Foust explains the initial idea for the story and walks through the months-long reporting process, detailing how they went about analyzing inspection reports and how she found parents to speak to, among other things.
A Maine Monitor and Center for Public Integrity analysis of thousands of inspection records found years of safety violations. The newsrooms reviewed more than 6,000 available inspection reports for 1,481 of the state’s more than 1,500 child care providers across Maine and found that providers have been repeatedly relicensed after multiple reported transgressions, which vary from missing immunization records to leaving children unsupervised. (The data analyzed includes 1,527 providers; those without inspection reports on the website were not included in the analysis.)
Since 2021, the 1,481 facilities have been cited for over 16,000 total violations; in that same timeframe, none has faced a fine.
You can listen to the episode here. Tune in to listen live the first Thursday of every month at 4 p.m. on WERU 89.9 FM.
