Who's watching your kids?

A mother who has asked us to keep her identity hidden because she is suing the woman who kept her children said when she found out what was happening she said, "I was terrified.  I felt horrible for my kids. During the process we found out she had previous fraud charges and had been in trouble before for running an unlicensed daycare and had been shut down."

Not doing her homework ended up costing her money and the stress of second guessing herself and worrying more about her kids.  "You don't really know anything since she's not a licensed daycare.  You don't know who is coming in and out of the home and whether or not they have criminal records."

It's all about knowing what questions to ask...We talked to Diana McPherson who is the owner and director of Doodlebug Square who told us what is required of any licensed daycare in Texas.  "We have to have their backgrounds run through the Texas Department of Family and Protection Services website, and if they haven't had their fingerprints run we have to have those done for the FBI background check."

Not only do they have to do the initial background checks but they have to rerun those every two years on every employee.  And they answer to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Licensing Department.  McPherson says, "The State comes in and that employee list is the first thing they check and they look to see that every person on there has had a background check done and that it's come back clear."  But McPherson says it's just better to not take the risk on someone if she's not sure.

These days it's not just the daycare down the street you can use for finding someone to trust your heart and soul to...you can go to the internet for babysitters.  So we decided to check with the online service available here in Lubbock...SeekingSitters.com

Julie Bates is the owner of the Lubbock Franchise but she's also a clinical Psychologist and says, "we are very picky about the sitters we bring on."

She says they use private investigators, do the background checks, the FBI fingerprint checks and they also check out possible sitters on social media and Bates says they aren't just looking for a criminal background but also at the character of the applicants.

"It's not just their ciminal backgrounds that we look at but also if they have defaulted on a loan then that says something about their character."

So no matter where you plan to look for someone to keep your child and love them like you do...take the advice of a mom who's