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May 17, 2008 9:53 am US/Eastern
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Innovative New Ways To Monitor Your Nanny
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
We've all heard the saying, 'it takes a village to raise a child.' Now, it's the motivation behind new websites looking for your help in reporting abuse or neglect of a child at the hands of a care-giver.
Caught on tape, horrifying images of neglect and abuse of children at the hands of their care-takers. It's every parent's worst nightmare which is why surveillance cameras have become so popular.
But what happens outside the home where there's no lens to keep tabs on their every move?
"The nanny just stared off into space and just completely ignored her and it was really heartbreaking to me," said Jennifer Merritt.
Every day, for several weeks during her coffee break, Merritt said she watched in disgust as a nanny completely ignored her charge's desperate pleas and cries for help despite being chastised by other members of the public.
"To me that was just as bad as if I'd seen her whack the girl in the face," said Merritt.
So she took a picture a posted it on-line at a nanny monitoring site. She's not the only one.
"If your nanny is out and about and does something bad to your child anyone can log onto howsmynanny.com and the parent gets a message as to what that observer saw the nanny do," explained Jill Starishevsky, a New York City prosecutor of child abuse and sex crimes, and now founder of the www.howsmynanny.com.
Similar to other sites like www.isawyournanny.com it gives parents and babysitters a place to anonymously report, on-line, bad behavior from physical abuse and neglect to nannies having children places they shouldn't be in.
"We have people tell us that nannies will walk down the street dragging a crying child crossing the street," said Starishevsky. Here's how it works, parents can order this mini license plate which they can then attach to a baby's stroller.
Passers-by can then log on and punch in the plate's code to report if they've seen something bad or good. "Its piece of mind when mom and dad go back to work," said Starishevsky.
In Merritt's case, a neighbor recognized the picture of the nanny and alerted the ignored child's parents.
"The nanny had been let go within a couple of days of getting all this information and they were looking for a new nanny," said Merritt.
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