Childcare Safety and Pool Regulations: Two small children drowned in a pool in the “Happy Happy Home Daycare” garden in San Jose. Official records show that Nina Fathizadeh and Shahin Shenas have cared for this family-run daycare in the Almaden district since the beginning of 2021. As a small family day watch home, it was allowed to care for up to eight children at once.
The sad event made people worry about the daycare’s pool area’s safety. During pre-licensing checks, state officials from the California Department of Social Services raised safety concerns. Online records show that the fence around the pool must be changed so people can’t get in directly through four windows. Inspectors also found holes in the wall that were four inches wide and needed to be fixed right away.
During a follow-up check done at the end of January 2021, it was found that the needed repairs had been made. This made the pool inaccessible to kids and ensured safety rules were followed. Dangers have also been taken out of the backyard.
Even though these safety measures were taken, tragedy still happened, leaving a community in grief and raising questions about how well safety measures around swimming pools work. Adam Katchmarchi of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance talked about how hard it is to stop these kinds of accidents. In the U.S., 800 to 1,000 children die yearly, making it the leading cause of death for kids ages one to four. Katchmarchi gave a chilling account of how these disasters can happen quietly and quickly, often in 20 to 60 seconds, and put a child to sleep underwater.
The San Jose Police looked into the drowning deaths of two young girls, Payton Alexandria Cobb, 18 months old, and Lillian Hanan, 1 year old. A third child hurt at the daycare is expected to get better.
Records show that “Happy Happy Home” was used six times in less than three years. Regions found five babies in the home during an unannounced check in January. This clearly violated the license, which only allowed three babies to be cared for at once. They also found out that an adult daycare worker had worked without getting a criminal background check. This was a severe problem that was finally fixed.
Other mistakes included:
- Not telling parents about their rights.
- Not practising for a disaster in the last six months.
- Not getting the required reporter training.
READ MORE: San Jose Daycare Tragedy: Child Safety Measures and Investigation Updates
The daycare recently got in trouble for not keeping track of sleeping babies and not checking on them often enough.
One of the daycare owners decided not to answer questions from the media or say anything about the rising worries and terrible events. The lack of contact, which left many questions unanswered, shocked and saddened the community.
After the event, the authorities stressed the importance of putting up solid walls and alarms to limit who could get into the pools. Child safety supporters stressed that physical safeguards are essential but should also be paired with constant monitoring. This is because children can be surprisingly clever.
As the investigation goes on, the neighbourhood deals with sadness. It recommits itself to keeping young children’s pools safe to prevent more heartbreaking tragedies like this one.