What Parents Need to Know About Drug and Alcohol Exposure at Daycare

As unbelievable as it sounds, there are bad daycares that expose children to drugs and alcohol. The Texas Department of Health and Human Services recently reported that in the span of 9 months, approximately 317 kids in daycares were injured because of drugs, alcohol, and other toxic substances.

You are probably wondering how is it that young kids at daycare are exposed to drugs and alcohol? We’ve represented families who have had a child injured because they ingested dangerous substances at daycare.

These situations happen when a daycare:

• fails to have a storage policy for personal belongings
• fails to enforce a no-substance policy
• and one of the scariest types of incidents – an employee chooses to give drugs or alcohol to children in their care.

Daycares should have and enforce a no-substance policy that prohibits employees from bringing illegal and adult substances to daycare- like cigarettes, vapes, alcohol, marijuana pens, THC gummies, prescription drugs, and drug paraphernalia. Even more important - daycares should have and enforce a storage policy that requires all employees to place their personal belongings out of the reach of children. Strict storage policies, when enforced, keep all dangerous items away from kids. For example, daycares can require all employees to place their purses, bags, and personal items in a locker.

It’s scary to think that a daycare employee would choose to give drugs or alcohol to children they were hired to care for – but the truth is, we’ve seen it happen – and it comes down to a hiring and supervision issue.

Employees should know better than to expose children to drugs and alcohol – but more importantly, the daycare’s director and owner should implement effective hiring, training, and supervision practices to ensure the safety of the kids at their daycare.

If you believe your child has been exposed to dangerous substances at daycare, be sure to follow these steps:

The first priority is your child’s safety and health – make sure they get proper medical attention right away. The second is making sure that those responsible are held accountable to make sure it never happens to another child again. Our team has handled cases where children were accidentally – and intentionally – exposed to harmful substances at daycare. If your child was exposed to drugs or alcohol at daycare, reach out to our child injury lawyers at The Button Law Firm.